[ RadSafe ] NW report Inconsistent with Better Controlled USA NSWS

[howard long]

Is bigger better? Not when less well controlled.
 
Cameron, one of the USA NSWS science advisors, found many SD greater longevity.
"B Cohen calc - 2.8 years added life for extra 0.5 rem compared with otherwise identical controls"   J Cuttler to DDP 7/28/02, approx. The only possible confounder I see is that  assignment to otherwise identical work may have selected healthier workers, knowing they might be exposed.
 
Cameron's paper, "Is Radiation an Essential Trace Energy?" is at

 

http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/2001/october/a5oct01.cfm 

 

Howard Long  

"Muckerheide, James" <jimm at WPI.EDU> wrote:


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NUCLEONICS WEEK JULY 7, 2005 


Nuclear workers study supports linear no-threshold risk model

 

The largest epidemiological study of low-dose radiation risk so far supports existing radiation protection standards that assume even tiny doses can cause cancer but adjust risk estimates downward for low doses, the study's authors said last week.

 

The "International Collaborative Study" of cancer risk for 407,391 nuclear industry workers in 15 countries showed a slight but statistically significant excess risk of cancer even at the low doses and dose rates typically received by the workers, the scientists said.

 

They estimated that 1%-2% of the cancer deaths recorded among the population studied were attributable to radiation exposure.

 

The study is the first to provide solid evidence of a linear no-threshold (LNT) model for low-dose radiation risk. That model, based on the high doses and dose rates sustained by Japanese atomic bomb survivors, holds that the risk should be extrapolated linearly down to zero dose. The LNT model is contested by some scientists worldwide who contend that doses below 100 milliSievert (mSv) or even 200 mSv are harmless and may even be beneficial. But there are also those who argue that low doses and low dose rates are actually more dangerous than higher ones.

 

The results of the new study were published June 29 in the British Medical Journal ( http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/onlinefirst_date.shtml ). 

 

The team of scientists was led by Elisabeth Cardis, head of the radiation group at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) ( http://www.iarc.fr/ENG/Units/RCAa1.html ) in Lyon, France.

 

On June 29, the U.S. National Academies' National Research Council published a study on low-dose health effects that also supported the LNT model (NW, 30 June, 12).

 

An earlier IARC collaborative study with a much smaller cohort covering only the U.S., U.K. and Canada, published in 1994, had not found a statistically significant excess risk for all cancers other than leukemia (NW, 27 Oct. '94, 1).