Re: More on Radiation effects

[JMUCKERHEIDE@delphi.com]

Sorry about the delay, I was cleaning up my files and noticed the following
message I had originally intended to comment on:

"glowboy@robot.nuceng.ufl.edu" wrote:

>That's a good question --  Who is the highest ranking EPA official
>who has a degree in HP?  What policy does this person get to set?

>My personal guess is that the policy is set by a person with a
>degree in biochemistry or molecular biology and no formal HP
>training.

Maybe I'm more cynical than you.

My personal guess is that it is a lawyer or political scientist or English
major or sociologist, possibly with a graduate course in statistics and
called an "epidemiologist", or at best "environmental science", with a
primary mission of maximizing EPAs political influence and funding, at any
price. 

At the Health Effects end, I wouldn't mind if the policy was set by (an
honest) biochemist or molecular biologist, even HP curricula have gotten
away from real assessment of health effects data in favor of accepting the
BEIR at face value (the Feds fear open examination of the bases for health
effects, and university programs depend on Federal funds). 

As has been stated here, there are probably no HPs in EPA in policy
positions. But there are scientists buried in this and other agencies that
try to do responsible work "from within the system". I was struck by EPA
funding of the BELLE Group (Biological Effects of Low Level Exposures)
dealing with both chemicals and radiation, working on research confirming
the natural polynomial relationship of dose-response to most poisons.

Sometimes though I wonder whether such EPA participation is more strategic
and controlling than potentially contributory.

On the HP side, I find most people I talk to in the industry have only
limited exposure (no pun intended :) ) to real health effects data,
radiobiology, biochemistry, cellular or molecular biology, or even qualified
epidemiology (not some of the statistics junk that now passes itself off as
epidemiology). This is done in favor of more focus on instrumentation and
"dose reduction", taking BEIR as a bible, and controlling paperwork to
comply with regulations. 

Worse, I find no real knowledge of the natural radioactivity environment
(beyond simplified charts of radiation exposure, and some very limited info
on radon data). Yet the fact that the China High Radiation Background Study
documents no adverse effects of very large increases in radioactivity and
radiation exposure, and many similar studies, the difference in lung cancer
types between miners and naturally occuring (potentially radon-induced) lung
cancer that prove the lack of extrapolation to low radon doses (not to
mention the lack of lung cancer in miners with only moderate improvements
in mine ventilation conditions - before we get to the Feds suppressing minor
follow-up research work that would further reduce the tie to the original
miner lung cancer data to uranium mining), in addition to Bernie Cohen's
work demonstrating an inverse relationship between radon and lung cancer -
the most recent study to be reported this fall in HPJ.

It is to the great credit of the HPJ that much good research data is
published, but I find few HPs and "radiation scientists", at least around
the power industry, have registered these materials and sources in terms of
wondering why we are spending vast sums to reduce a few mrem to a few
people, and absorbing large fines and PR nightmares when the paperwork is
out of order.

Regards,

Jim Muckerheide