Re: Radiation Biology

[JMUCKERHEIDE@delphi.com]

Bruce,
 
> Hi All,
> 
> Not wanting to get to Achadem-centric, but our program here at the
> University of MIchigan has incorporated a very good radiobiology course,
> the information presented was on the cutting edge of radiation biology

Sounds like Dr. Jim Trosko, former Director of Research at Radiation Effects
Research Foundation, and others, now at U. Mich?!  In "Genetics", in the
"Department of Pediatric Medicine" or something similar??  Notice the lack of
connection to "radiobiology"! 

> research. I was pleased to hear our professors saying things like "..
> this last June it was found.." and "... this has not made it into the
> journals yet..." The information on DNA repair, apotosis, p51 made the

"apoptosis"? ,  "p53 gene"? :-)

> class up to date, which is pretty hard to do with radiation biology.
> Perhaps that is one reason why the HP community has moved away from
> radiationbiology, it has changed a lot in the last 10 years, and who has
> the time to keep up. 

I would note that such research is being done from the independent work in
biology and genetics research, particularly in cellular and molecular biology
and genetics of carcinogenesis and mutagenisis, largely around the
"controllers" of radiation biology who have de-funded traditional radiobiology 
research, including shutting down whole programs (like the Center for Human
Radiobiology at Argonne with 1000s of radium burden cases from <1950 still
alive), and constraining individual investigators, and not publishing results, 
while coming up with $10s millions for "epidemiology" studies that are without 
any science merit (ie, studies that, with infinite resources, have no
possibility of finding scientifically valid results, except to contribute to
indeterminate uncertainties about public health effects; eg, the Hanford
Project), but do contribute to public fears and support for regulation and
site "cleanups" at $100s Billions. 

These efforts are picking up the mantle of scientific interest, with about a
10-year lag, that the controlled radiobiology agency interests did not want
pursued! Unfortunately this does mean that some very interesting animal and
whole organism experiments, including suppressed abient radiation studies, are 
still not being done. 

(There are indications that the Hanford study is a problem -- now that they
have the dose reconstruction saying that the max child thyroid dose is like (I 
don't have the material here) 285 Rem (100-800? range) they need to deal with
the effects part of the health effects. As with other large $ studies (like
the Nuclear Shipyard Workers Study), they may now need to be trying to make
this go away quietly so nobody gets wind of the lack of effects. (No pun
intended :-)  I would appreciate any input from people closer to the study. 

> -Bruce Busby
>  Standard disclaimers apply
> 
Thanks, Bruce.

Regards, Jim Muckerheide