Re: Re(2): Natural background.

[JMUCKERHEIDE@delphi.com]

Paul Frame writes:
          The fact that adverse effects haven't been
          observed in patients whose thyroids were being evaluated or
          treated with iodine doesn't mean that no adverse health
          effects occur in that or any other group. We simply don't
          know.
While this may be true in an exoteric "scientific" sense, my simple
point only relates to spending the public treasure: If no adverse
consequences are found in populations in the 10,000s exposed to 10,000s of
mrem, while there may be some justification in further research of potential
consequences, there is no justification for spending $Billions to protect
hypothetical individuals from 10s of mrem.
          On the other hand, the Marshall Islanders certainly
          showed a significant increase in thyroid disorders due to
          their uptakes.
Of course there are consequences to massive doses (but even those few
nodules beg the issue of radiation significance at very high doses).

We get skin cancer from too much sun. Our radiation protection policy and
demand on government funds is equivalent to covering all cities and
requiring the population to go about "outside" only with work permits,
monitors (guards), and fully covered (with dosimetry).
          What we do see is that the thyroid is not
          particulary sensitive, hence its weighting factor of 0.03
          Since the thyroid is the only thing that counts :-) the
          estimated WB dose should be  3% of the thyroid dose, not 20
          %.
Sorry, I was referring to different studies without being precise. The 10
rem WB was from followup studies of leukemia to I-131 patients with
dosimetric estimates at 10 rem WB. I'd have to dig out the reference.
          >of the radium ingestion population, no carcinomas or
          >sarcomas below 1000 RAD - Q=20?, 20,000 rem?;

          A point worth noting is that the 1000 rad is a dose to the
          skeleton and not the whole body. The skeleton, like the
          thyroid is relatively radioresistant.
Right. But we still have an EPA radium in water limit of 5 pCi/l?!

Further, since only about 30% of the daughter radon is exhaled, the
remainder decays in the body, mostly released from the bone, in the blood at
time of decay. And the mostly-young-women dial painters were exposed to
significant external gamma doses from the work bench, with no breast cancer
risk found.
          And for what its
          worth, the quality factor is not meant to be applied beyond
          doses in the range of the annual limits.

          There may indeed be a threshold but an inability to detect
          effects below certain doses in specific tissues  (especially
          radioresistant ones) in certain populations doesn't prove
          much.
Well we could reasonably disagree on what it should prove "scientifically",
the BEIR linear "model" for radium depends on ignoring the data for the
larger segment of the population below 1000 rad. As Robley Evans showed,
BEIR and Gofman/Tamplin are esentially equivalent and mathematically fail to
represent the actual data by up to 1/200,000,000. 

And the Federal radiation establishment suppressed reporting the data on the
followup population in '83, even though obfuscation of results had been the
rule for years, and they stopped taking data in '86, and closed and buried
all program files in '93. A final report on the program completed last year
has been unable to get released by DOE.

(BEIR is not a credible source of the _science_ of radiation health effects.
It will be interesting to see how the concerns by new head of the National
Academy of Science about the undue influence of the Federal agencies in the
results of their funded studies comes into the scrutiny of the workings and
results of the BEIR. If some of the program controls are released so that
competent radiation scientists can pursue science instead of Federal
bureaucracy objectives and controls, a great deal will come to light fairly
quickly. Imagine if the mission of HP and related disciplines could be
re-oriented to working on applying science to understanding health effects,
stopping the suppression of data and programs; to positive uses and
applications of radiation with reasonable controls consistent with public
health needs, and the $100s of Billions that the Federal establishment wants
to "clean up" sites and to "dispose" of radioactive wastes with no public
health benefits, could be redirected to actual public health needs!?)

We are spending several $Billions (and untold wasted political capital,
except for a small group of anti's that have signed on to these
multifarious efforts) on low level waste, without a solution in sight, as a
direct result of this supposed "uncertainty" about exposures to a few mrem
propounded directly by the BEIR to the benefit of EPA, FDA, DOE and others
with a vested interest in the government funding. To keep a few $ of
research going, the country is going to spend a $Trillion!

We need to be clearer on what "uncertainty" is; and what public spending is
justified in the name of that "uncertainty", if we are going to be
responsible citizens and care about the future of the reasonable use and 
control of radiation to the benefit of society, not just a few years of
massive unjustified spending with no public benefit (and compounded lost
benefits).

Regards,

Jim Muckerheide      |      JMuckerheide@Delphi.com