Human respose to radiation

[HWADE@aol.com]

Greetings to the Radsafe Community

Those of you interested in human response to radon exposure should read the
paper by Lubin, et al. in Health Physics, 69(4):494-500; 1995.  They find
that, in miners, an increasing exposure to radon, it units of WL, results in
a lower relative risk for lung cancer.

Another paper of interest is that by Tore Straume, Health Physics,
69(6):954-956.  He finds that, for low LET radiation there is an inverse
relation between energy and biological effectiveness  as measured by the
number of di-centric chromosomes produced in human cells.

I believe these findings substantiate Lauriston Taylor's statement when
referring to the dose-response relation that, "if used for projecting real
effects that will occur following low-level exposures of the public, the
assumption of proportionality is inappropriate and misleading and should not
be so used."

H.Wade Patterson
hwade@aol.com