Re[6]: how many sensitive cells?

[tdc@ehssun.lbl.gov]

>For what it may be worth, the following quotation from a 1977 paper "Repair
>and Dose-Response at Low Doses" by  J. R. Totter and A. M. Weinberg,
>ORAU/IEA(0)-77-11, may be relevant:

>"Yet the simplest considerations strongly suggest that repair, at some
>level, at least of low LET radiation, must exist. With some 2-4E14
>ionizations from background radiation (a large dose from the standpoint of
>the strictly no-threshold linear hypothesis) occurring within the DNA of
>the ~10E13 cells of the human body during the first 30 years of life, it
>is difficult to explain why everyone does not die of cancer unless very
>effective mechanisms for removing the damage are a dominant factor".

Of course!

Thus to support LNT is to declare this process to be immutable - unlike any
other bilogical process - and NOT subject to stimulation!