Re: $2500 award

[JMUCKERHEIDE@delphi.com]

Wes and all,

Your recommendation was Dr. Norm Frigerio's plan to follow what he considered
to be the "preliminary" work on the AEC Contract from the "post Calvert Cliffs 
decision" to better assess rad impacts in the "Argonne Radiological impact
Program". He produced the 1973 Argonne report (using the EPA state-by-state
background radiation data and national cancer data, with rigorous scientific
analysis - applying the math as though numbers meant something instead of the
lack of understanding by many in epi.) 

He had his head handed to him in '73 for going against the AEC/Oak Ridge,
BEIR/NCRP/ICRP/UNSCEAR prohibition of considering data that contradicts the
funding rules: all radiation is harmful - which Norm knew, like all the rad
biologists from his radiobiology work at Oak Ridge/Argonne (and the
suppression of data at Oak Ridge in the '50s-'70s). The results were only
published by presenting them at the 1976 IAEA "Conf on the Effects of Natural
Radioactivity" (?) (in the brief form that such conf proceedings allow). 

No one in the radbio/rad protection community considered the data (it was of
course well known to all); and no one considered the technical work beyond the 
Conf Proceedings (it was known to be unassailable, like Robley Evans 1974 HPJ
article that indicted BEIR '72; and like Bernie Cohen's 1988-1995 radon study
data and analysis, also as a test of the linear model - but they don't
criticise the analysis, they "get" the author and make up a mantra that "the
study has been refuted", "its an ecological study" to con the gullible). So
its never referenced. 

Read the book by the reknown Swedish radiobiologist Dr Gunnar Walinder, "Has
Radiation Protection Become a Health Hazard?" (from when he was a member of
UNSCEAR and ICRP) where he reports, as one example, of UNSCEAR/Pochin
suppressing even just the reporting of Frigerio's data in UNSCEAR 1977 (as
with the data of hundreds of other studies). Read also BEIR III's disingenuous 
dismissal of this work as "junk science" without addressing the merits,
alongside Victor Archer's junk. 

Better yet, read Frigerio's original 1973 report, it is a masterful and unique 
treatment of carefully, fairly, and rigorously, testing the Gofman and other
linear models from the data, until the wondering authors (including Keith
Eckerman) could only be dumbfounded at the surprizing and objectively
developed result. (I'll provide a copy if you'll do a "radsafe review".  :-)  

Wes, I've argued that what Bernie did ON HIS OWN, only for radon and lung
cancer by county, is what the US gov't and NCRP knowingly refused to do, and
actively suppressed, through the 1970s, until Norm's death. As a patriarch in
the Greek Orthodox Church, with an large family and a farm, and a throwback to 
the "enlightened and rigorous scientist", rather than a player of the funding
game, Norm charted a rigorous and objective course; but seemed to a casual and 
sometime observer, to have applied his larger vision to reconcile with his
observation of the impoverished lives of the strivers without a loss of his
great good humor. He observed that most of his associates who wouldn't play
the game found areas that did not require them to be "involved" in the "low
dose debate"; or, as he said in '78 "left radiobiology to find honest work". I 
suspect that your recommendation to get this work done BY OUR RAD SCIENCE
POLICY ESTABLISHMENT would have similar results today -- but maybe tomorrow! 
:-) 

Thanks for your recommendation.  :-)

Regards, Jim Muckerheide
jmuckerheide@delphi.com
=========================================
> Bernie,
> 
> It seems to me that a second grand radiation epidemiology experiment
> might be done with background photon and muon radiation instead of
> radon.  
> 
> That is, correlate average county external dose rate with cancer rate by
> county.  The external background dose rates might be obtained from
> several large dosimetry services (e.g. Landauer, ICN, etc.) whereby
> their background dosimeters are assumed to represent the average dose
> rate in that county. I would think that there are 1e+5 or more
> background dosimeter readings available. Perhaps one would have to
> correct for extra dose if they were shipped by air.
> 
> Of course, the first step would be to assess if this study would have
> the statistical power to show a correlation if there were one.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Wes
> 
> PS  As to my $2500 award, just put it in escrow, because I'm sure a
> better idea will come along.   ;-)
> 
> -- 
> Wesley R. Van Pelt, Ph.D., CIH, CHP                   KF2LG
> President, Van Pelt Assoc., Inc.      vanpeltw@mail.idt.net
> Consulting in radiological health and safety.
> "TIME, its what keeps everything from happening at once."
> 
>