linear hypothesis - invalid science

[JMUCKERHEIDE@delphi.com]

Gone a few days, and another "linear model debate" :-)  Of course, it's really 
amazing to see the actual data, analysis and conclusions of Lauriston Taylor
and Wade Patterson and Robley Evans and Norm Friegerio and Bernard Cohen and
Rosalyn Yalow and Zbigniew Jaorowski and Robert Thomas and Don Luckey and
Sohei Kondo and Victor Bond and Marshall Brucer and Myron Pollycove, and
hundreds of others, who are truly intimate with the science, and with the
actual DATA, that absolutely disprove the "linear model", rejected by many
without referring at all to the science, nor the data, but simply buy into the 
technically unfounded rationale of the self-interested few and their funding
agencies. (This includes the HPS Newsletter article by Dan Strom which I
looked forward to in order to understand ANY technical basis for the linear
model, or technical problems with the conflicting data?! Especially after the
IARC fabrication of the leukemia "analysis".) 

Why not use the evidence? The DATA _proves_ the "linear model" can not be
true.  (This doesn't even count the other leg of the stool that requires a
biological model that was provided originally by Muller re genetic effects
that is now totally disproved!) 

Alex Zapantis writes:

> I see that once again the linear no threshold response hypothesis is being
> challenged and that some subscribers seem to be absolutely convinced that
> such an hypothesis has next to no scientific basis. In the past, various

Actually it has NO scientific basis!  :-)  

> studies have been cited as evidence of the invalidity of this hypothesis. 

Right. So don't ignore them.
 
> I think that we should remind ourselves that based on the linear hypothesis
> and the risk factors quoted by the ICRP, at low doses such as those which
> are likely to occur at low dose rates, the risks are of such a magnitude
> that studies which could disprove or prove (I use those words with some
> licence) the linear hypothesis would require VERY large populations. eg, the
> quoted risk of developing a fatal cancer from a dose of 1mSv (0.1rem) is 1
> in 20,000. 

This is true!  and irrelevant. 

Try this:  Draw a letter "J" (in italics  :-) .. make it as "shallow" as you
like. This is the DATA (from hundreds of studies, including many/most of those 
in BEIR V).  

Draw a line from the point of the left leg to the point of the right leg (this 
is the "linear model"  :-) 

Draw a horizontal line from the point of the left leg. Your argument is
correct at the point of the left leg. You can't make a determination.  That
has nothing to do with whether the "model" is linear, threshold, or
"hormetic"; ie, which of the three curves at the point represent the data. 

This is precisely what BEIR and NCRP and ICRP do with the data (taking all the 
effects at the high end and dividing by the total dose to report effects/Sv
and announcing that the study proves the linear model). For example, BEIR says 
in BEIR V that the Canadian women exposed to fluoroscopy with excess breast
cancer confirm the linear model (Roy Shore, with Charlie Meinhold, at the ANS
meeting in June actually used THIS study as one that "proves", or at least
supports, the linear model!? :-)  

BUT, the DATA show that at 15 rem the breast cancer is 1/3 LOWER than normal,
HIGHLY significant (2.7 SDs below normal!)  The study reports the "linear
model" result even with this explicitly reported in the table?!  

They state that there are 60 excess breast cancers/rem/10^6 women so exposed
(all at high doses) to effectively "find" 900 excess cancers at 15 rem, with
highly significant DATA that show 10,000 FEWER cancers in 10^6 women so
exposed! 

Consider also that BEIR and NCRP  _KNOW_  with certainty that this is the true 
DATA, so much so that BEIR and NCRP aggressively and effectively acted to
suppress the presentation of this data in the UNSCEAR 1994 App B report !! 

If this were an anomolous result, it would be subject to serious question and
inquiry. It's not anomolous. It is consistent with hundreds of studies
(including the Japanese survivors!) It is not subject to "inquiry", it is
ignored. It is misrepresented by BEIR and NCRP, and is subject to suppression
when scientists attempt to pursue the science and the data (though most active 
scientists who depend on government funding...) 

Note that BEIR states that the there is NO excess leukemia (the most
significant rad cancer effect) in the Japanese below 40 cGy. Actually there is 
significantly LESS leukemia below 20 cGy, and a small excess at 20-40 cGy for
a NET that is about zero (this avoids recognizing the significant LOWER rate
below 20 cGy! (BEIR, of course, then divides the high dose net excess cancers
by the total dose to misrepresent the data and report leukemia/Sv, totally in
conflict with the DATA. With the SCIENCE again demonstrably invalid, having a
polynomial distribution/fit arbitrarily represented by a straight line,
contrary to any scientific standard (though its clearly not "arbitrary" :-) 

Recall Robley Evans' 1974 HPJ article that showed such misrepresentation by
BEIR (72) that was totally invalid science to apply the "linear model" to the
radium-burden populations, which also had a t-test goodness-of-fit of about
1/1,000,000 to the MIT data. BEIR even went so far as to include the large
symptom-selected population to report the cancer "rate".  Anybody who has any
thought that the linear model has any scientific basis should read this study
(if there is any interest in the science and/or the data!?)  Go to the HPJ Vol 
44 Suppl 1 1983 for the radium data a decade later, with worldwide updates of
thousands of cases, with no bone cancer below 1000 ry - or I'll send a copy of the passage). 

This population also shows beneficial results for many other endpoints,
including SMRs. (At this point DOE and the Fed radiation agencies acted to
suppress the work and shut down the Center for Human Radiobiology at Argonne!  
BUT we've got >$100 MILLION for "dose reconstruction" which can find no
effects, and can provide for no benefits for neither public health nor any
exposed individuals, except that it is used to instigate the public to cause
concerns about low level radiation!  funny thing  :-)  We need a lot of public 
support (read fear) to get support to spend, as Dr. Goldman observed in the
Feb '95 Newsletter, $-trillion to clean-up our nuclear backyard!  BUT we also
have 500,000 - 2,000,000 children exposed to 2000 - 8000 rad in the nasal
cavity in the 50s, with excess brain cancer and other debilitating diseases,
for which we have no government money and no interest.) 

The FEW studies of medically exposed populations consistently contradict the
"linear model". For example, one (in Sweden with none in the US even though
Rosalyn Yalow reports that 1 to 3 million procedures were performed in the US
pre-1968 !? ) show NO excess leukemia in 22,000 I-131 therapeutic treatments
of hyperthyroid patients (16+-4 cases per 100,000 person-years) vs 14,000
surgical/other patients (13+-3 cases) at 10-15 cSv whole body/bone dose, while 
BEIR predicts 36-46 cases!?  for the I-131 population, with other similar and
later followup studies confirming these results. The "linear model" is
absolutely destroyed by these studies, IF the science OR the data mean
anything at all!? 

Go to the Nuclear Shipyard Worker Study: significant beneficial effects from
the only nuclear worker population with good dosimetry and minimal confounding 
effects with an internal non-nuclear worker comparison (70,000 workers
representing 700,000); $10M 1978-1987, not published or reported by DOE,
forced out of DOE (only as a contractor report, not a government report) in
1991 with a 2-page statement, and totally ignored by the BEIR/NCRP, etc, while 
irresponsible and immoral unscientific junk like Steven Wing's Oak Ridge
"study" is funded by DOE and pushed to get reported in JAMA and used in a
government media campaign (like the IARC unscientific misrepresentation of
linear effects in the nuclear worker data, and the governments' international
media campaign fostering public fear of radiation). 

Go to hundreds of other studies that absolutely refute the "nonscience" of the 
"linear model", for those who think science and data mean anything. 

>The "natural" rate of cancer mortality in the western world is
> about 1 in 4.4. Thus even if we studied a population of 1E6 people, we would
> be looking for 50 extra cases in about 227,000. I haven't even considered
> confounding factors here. I guess what I am trying to say is that we
> shouldn't be surprised if a study of 1000 people exposed to a few extra mSv
> per year finds no excess incidence of cancer (or even a decreased risk!) .
> Thus we certainly shouldn't use such studies as a basis for ridiculing the
> linear model.

We shouldn't, and we're not, and it makes no difference! 

> Our current knowledge of stochastic effects come largely from studies of
> fairly large populations such as Nagasaki and Hiroshima, ankolosing
> spondylitics (I can't spell it) etc, and based on ALL of this data, the ICRP
> has presented the linear model. It may not be correct however I don't
> believe that we have shown it to be erroneous at this stage. Remember, one
> cannot prove a negative.

It is clear from the stimulatory effects confirmed in the new biological
evidence, and the total lack of genetic effects, radiation effects are shown
not to be stochastic. Like the BEIR ref to leukemia above, with other end
points generally not as dramatic, the Japanese data (with its few excess
cancers, all above 20 cGy, does not support the linear model except by
arbitrarily "drawing a straight line" from zero while ignoring the actual data 
and its non-linear character. There is another whole list of the most
knowledgeable biology scientists that report on this fallasy. You need to
understand their reports on molecular biology and genetics, and the lack of
underlying support for a linear biological mechanism to get at the destruction 
of this leg of the stool on the "linear model" (see especially Sohei Kondo's
book; and former RERF Research Director Jim Trosko's work - including his
papers on "CAN Radiation Cause Cancer?") 

You erroneously presume without question that ICRP (and presumably BEIR and
NCRP) objectively reviews this data. If you really believe that, and accept
their "results" without independent knowledge or examination of the science
and/or the data, you will have a hard time understanding the lack of validity
of their pronouncements. 

> As professional HPs, I believe that it is our responsibility to provide
> advice based on the current accepted state of knowledge. Those of us who

"Accepted"  is an interesting word. If a false, self-serving conclusion is
uncritically "accepted", what is your "responsibility"?  :-)   At what point
are you culpable for NOT critically examining, and contributing to fostering
public fear costing the public more than a $1-trillion in the US alone, for
"cleanup" alone, for negligible public health benefit? The massive costs
imposed on applications add many $10s-billions/year world-wide! 

> quote individual studies which include the words "radiation hormesis" in
> their conclusions as a basis for discrediting the linear model remind me of
> the lobbyists who use certain studies into ELF health effects (and ignore
> the majority) to attempt to stop the erection of transmission lines in their
> suburbs.

It would be better if you reviewed the data instead of denigrating the top
scientists in the world, most of whom have nothing to gain from taking on the
issue, except the public welfare (as opposed to the self-serving interests
that foster the linear model and public fear of radiation). 

This started from the FDA using Eben Byers' death in 1932 to get rad control
authority ignoring his massive overdose (5000-10,000 uCi Ra-226 equivalent
ingestion) in order even then to foster public fear to achieve bureaucratic
funding and authority, suppressing public acceptance of radiation use - long
before "the bomb" which is usually, and falsely, blamed for the public
aversion to radiation (except when they get 1000s of times more radiation from 
routine healthy-patient medical procedures, and even when 10s and 100s of rem
in medical misadministrations are (correctly) written off, with certain
medical knowledge of the lack of risk/effects; and even cardiologists
personally getting 500 - 1500 mrem/month with some better knowledge of the
risks than the "trained" HP who has NOT been informed in the current formal
education driven by government interests and funding, of the breadth and
substance of the actual data, starting in the '70s).  

> I do not propose that the linear model is the truth, the whole truth and
> nothing but the truth, but I do believe that it is the best model we have
> and that we should assume it to be correct until something better comes
> along, which has not yet happened.

Your "belief" should be informed by the data and the science. It's time to
start addressing this massive waste of public resources, and the loss of the
contributions radiation and nuclear science and technology make to humanity
due to this fabrication of public concern. 

> Well, I'm glad I got all of that off my chest. For all those who wish to
> flame me, my direct email address is below.

No flames intended. There is simply a general lack of knowledge of the mass of 
data, even within the BEIR report itself that conclusively refutes the "linear 
model". Your statements reflect the "understanding" that is promulgated
extensively within the profession. 

There are many substantive sources from the world's authorities on the science 
and data. Get the article by former UNSCEAR chair Jaworowski in Nuckeoniks,
Jan 1995 (where he reports on the 12 years it took to get the UNSCEAR 1994 App 
B issued, and the fallacy of the linear model)!  

Even more, talk to many of the leading scientists, including BEIR and NCRP
members, to see what they say in the hallway that they are afraid to say in
public; even having requests to testify to statements they make in informal
public speaches when they say their program or department funding would be at
risk. 

Finally, ignore that Don Luckey is a world class biochemist and nutritionist,
authority on vitamin, mineral and heavy metal dietary supplements, who says
those terrible words "radiation hormesis", and read his books just for the
data he references (and to recognize the difference in BS science in BEIR
reports and real science that simply, objectively, assesses actual data and
conducts validating experiments), with 1269 refs in the 1980 book and
something like 800-900 in the 1992 book. (I especially recommend the 1980 book 
- the second is not a revised edition.) 

> Regards
> 
>                         Alex Zapantis
>                         Radiation Safety Officer                               
>                         Queensland University of Technology          
>                         Health & Safety Section                             
>                         Locked Bag No.2
>                         Red Hill Qld 4059
>                         AUSTRALIA
> 
>                         Ph     : 61 7 864 3566
>                         fax     : 61 7 864 3993
>                         email  : a.zapantis@qut.edu.au

Thanks.

Regards, Jim Muckerheide
jmuckerheide@delphi.com