LNT and whose junk science?

[JMUCKERHEIDE@delphi.com]

Dr. Kaurin,

Thanks for your note:
 
> Dear James Muckerheide,
> 
> I appreciate your comments with regard to Luckey's, Cohen's, and other work
> with regard to no observable adverse health effects (possibly even hormetic
> effects) and problems with the linear-no-threshold hypothesis.  I personally
> think it is irresponsible for the U.S. EPA to not take the work of Cohen
> seriously and fund radon research to determine if the current
> recommendations are not well founded.
> 
> Nevertheless, I think we should point out the short comings of the work, and
> refrain from calling "junk science" only those results we disagree with.  As
> an example, in the reference: Luckey, T.D.  "The Evidence for Radiation
> Hormesis".  Nuclear Report, 21st Century, p.12-20 Fall 1996.  
> 
> 1)  In Table 3 and Figures 5 and 6, Luckey uses a study of British Nuclear
> Workers to show that those receiving the highest doses had the lowest
> leukemia mortality.  Since the British results were not corrected for age,
> the greatest confounder in epidemiology research, he used United States
> leukemia death rates to correct the British results.  By not using British
> death rates, he introduces a potential error in differences between US and
> UK leukemia death rates.  Also, he used the death rates for all US citizens,
> which are not as healthy as workers, introducing the problem of the healthy
> worker effect.  This is extremely sloppy science (junk science?) and in my
> opinion, this example should be thrown out.  For a person that believes all
> radiation is harmful, this appears to be manipulating the data to get the
> result you want.

I'm not sure about the abridged version of Dr. Luckey's scientific article in
the 21st Century report, but he states that he tried to get the British to
provide age-adjustment data and they would not. He used US leukemia-age data
as an example of the effect of age-adjusting, asking and calling on the
scientific community to do the work. (Note that he is writing and working only 
on his own in retirement, and receiving no support, and active suppression of
work he has produced and recommended since the '70s, then as the highly
regarded Prof and Dean of the Dept of Biochemistry in the School of Medicine
of U. Mo-Columbia, from the "radiation science" community.) He would be
ecstatic if someone with funding, access to the data, and responsibility for
science and regulatory policy, did what you ask, even as a comment letter in a 
journal responding to his demonstration. 

> 2) In a study of U.S. Nuclear Workers (p.16-17 of the reference I am
> referring to), Luckey compares the SMR (standardized mortality ratio) for
> workers with doses of greater 50 mSv with the SMR for unexposed workers.

I must not be following you. This sounds like standard practice.

> Anyone who has stayed awake during a beginning epidemiology class should
> know that you can't compare SMRs - unlike normal math rules, a SMRs do not
> have the property of transitivity (ie: if a is greater than b, and b is
> greater than c, then a is greater than c).  This is extremely sloppy - and
> indefensible (junk science?).  What should have been done was to compare the
> death rates between the workers with the exposure and the workers with out
> the exposure.   The result is most likely the same, and if my memory serves
> me correctly, was done in the UNSCEAR 1994 report.

I'd expect it to be the same unless I'm missing something. Where's the "junk"
producing biased results or misrepresenting the facts?  

> As for the work of Cohen, I was extremely impressed with his analysis.
> Since the results are extremely surprising, one must question if an
> ecological study is appropriate, since the radon doses assigned are average
> values for the entire county.  Cohen's results are not unique, the UNSCEAR
> 1994 report lists numerous other radon ecological studies - some show a
> negative lung cancer rate with dose, some non-significant, and some a
> significant positive lung cancer rate with dose.  I have not read each of
> the other ecological studies, but one must question the fundamentals of
> ecological studies for radon, since the results are so diverse.

None have Cohen's statistical power or comprehensive analysis. Most are small
variations in small numbers not able to show results (true also of
case-control studies which generally have less than a few thousand cases and
no actual dosimetry). All with moderately credible data show null or negative
relations, especially large differences for populations at radon spas, etc,
(eg, Misasa Spa in Japan) that make up for the small populations to some
extent. Most are too confounded to be clear, and some are funded by the rad
protection interests. 

> As for the mudslinging at BEIR 5 for not recognizing the lack of harm at low
> doses, the studies of areas with high background radiation are listed in the
> book, with the results.  In my opinion, this is not ignoring the data.  The

They ignore the data. Making a throwaway ref doesn't mean they didn't ignore
it. Read BEIR V where they make conclusions about projecting from Japanese
bombs survivor data (wholely confounded and data that is extensively
manipulated, see eg, Walinder's book on the manipulation he saw as a UNSCEAR
and ICRP Member, and is not available, even to the BEIR V contractors vis
Bernie Cohen's data). 

> UNSCEAR 1994 report also has an entire section devoted to adaptive response,
> with a reference to the work of Luckey in the text.  The  activation of the
> immune system by radiation is suggested for some of the results.  Thus, I
> think some of your accusations are not entirely true.

UNSCEAR 94 _Appendix B_  presents the data, and is a step. See, eg,
Jaworowski's paper on "Beneficial Effects" reporting on these results, but
note that its not in "Radiation Research" or "Health Physics" or other more
accessible journal. But even Appendix B, which Jaworowski notes took 12 years
to get out, was changed by US NCRP/BEIR leaders, presumably with ICRP
involvement, after it was approved in March and before it was printed to
expunge the Canadian TB women data that show beneficial effects below 30 cSv.
This is the source that BEIR V says is the "second most significant study"
after the Japanese survivors (see Chapter 4 on "sources") because the original 
paper, Miller 89, NEJM, ignored its own data to project a linear model result. 
Ie, it states that 60 women would get breast cancer in 1 million women exposed 
to 1 cSv, weighted by the high-dose data. But the most significant data in the 
paper show that at 15 cSv, breast cancer is 1/3 of normal, 2.7 SDs below
baseline; ie, instead of 900 excess cancers in 1 million women, there would be 
10,000 FEWER cancers in 1 million women exposed to 15 cSv). 

Even after this was well-publicised, and not refuted, Roy Shore presented it
as the "proof" of the linear model in a June 95 session, and instead of
responding to it, he left mad. And I've heard from audiences that BEIR/NCRP go 
on presenting it to the hp community, the national labs, the public, and
others, as showing/proving linear data. And actively preventing it from being
reported in UNSCEAR Appendix B, and obfuscating it again in Appendix A. 

Even BEIR V chokes on statements that show no effects, like thyroid cancer,
but then "report" that "NCRP uses 2.5 cancers per cSv" (with a 'straight
face'). Go back to Robley Evans indicting the bad-science in BEIR '72 in his
HPJ '74 "Radium in Man", also ignored (see BEIR III), where ref to Evans work
goes to his '72 paper but not his '74 paper and responds not a whit to his
criticism. They dismiss out of hand Frigerio's '73 work (after suppressing the 
work and its publication, except Frigerio finally got it in the '76 IAEA Conf
on 'Natural Radioactivity'? but they ref only the Conf Proceedings, not the
complete analysis (but then "it was never published"  :-) funny-thing; just
like the IARC "study" that DOE sponsored that "couldn't consider the 10-year,
$10 million Nuclear Shipyard Worker Study" - chaired by Art Upton himself!
done in '87 but not reported in his BEIR V report - funny, it was never
published either  :-). 

> Perhaps the dose limits are too conservative.  Perhaps there is a hormetic
> effect.  But we still must analyze the data correctly, refute sloppy or junk
> science, keep our minds open, and the dialog continuing.

I agree. But it seems to me you have presented a double-standard of screening
for "junk science" (but maybe that's not the right term anyway). 

> Standard disclaimers.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Darryl Kaurin, Ph.D.
> Brookhaven National Laboratory
> Safety and Environmental Protection Division
> Building 535A
> Upton, NY 11973-5000
> (516)344-3166
> kaurin@mail.sep.bnl.gov

Thanks.

Regards, Jim Muckerheide
jmuckerheide@delphi.com