Re: do we _need_ radiation?

[JMUCKERHEIDE@delphi.com]

Dr. Kay,
> 
<snip> 
> I agree that the experiment you describe is just begging to be done. Unfortunat-
> ely, the number of mice that would be required to show a small deleterious 
> effect from lack of ambient radiation is about the same that would be
> required to show a deleterious effect from small positive doses of radiation.
> In essence, it has to be a mega-mouse type experiment to yield results
> at a scientific level of certainty (p < 0.1). 

I would think that is radiation were _necessary_ it would NOT take megamouse
experiments to see an effect, the response is non-linear!  :-)  

Or put another way, perhaps reducing background a factor of 10 would be more
equivalent to an increased background of a factor of 10 (it's NOT an increase
of 90% !  :-)  From the early Oak Ridge work, this would be in the range of
showing results. Clearly any reduction from 10% would be dramatically
effective since most positive effects data in mice indicates positive effects
in the 50 rem/year range, but as Dr. Luckey shows in Radiation Hormesis, that
is near the ZEP, not at the range of likely maximum beneficial effect 10-30
rem/yr based on compiling relevant data at the low end and the zep, with data
lacking in the range that would require smaller experiments to demonstrate if
real since the delta from zero is potentially large. 

> When I was at the University of Missouri Research Reactor Facility, I routinely
> irradiated pounds of tomato seeds in our 10 Kilocurie Cobalt-60 source at
> levels from about 100 to 100,000 rads. Kits of seeds from all dosages along
> with control seeds were made available to any group that wanted to do the
> experiment. Time and time again the results were reported back to us with the
> seeds in the first irradiated group being more productive, growing taller,
> producing more leaves, setting more fruit, than the controls. These were
> always referred to as anamalous results because they went against the
> "Everybody knows that all radiation is harmful." myth.

And even the ANS has an experiment for high school teachers that proposes
seeds be sent for irradiation at high (10,000s R) doses so we can watch those
suckers die!  :-)  

> Best of luck in finding funding for your experiment. I hope you can convince
> the powers that be it is worth funding.

Not from the current radiobiology science control group! New relevant work is
coming from the biology side that is not so controlled, but oriented to the
cellular/molecular level in cancer and genetics. This type experiment doesn't
have a home, yet! 

> Michael Kay, ScD
> makay@reed.edu

Thanks.

Regards, Jim Muckerheide