Re: FW: Mice and elephants

[JMUCKERHEIDE@delphi.com]

> On Thu, 3 Jul 1997, Wood, Michael wrote:
> 
> > The following is the response to Bernie's "Mice and elephant" post from
> > one of our senior Scientist.  As Paul is not on the list I am posting it
> > for him.
> 
> > >So I have some questions for Bernie:
> > >
> > >What sort of biology is it that doesn't take into account genetics,
> > >development, and known aspects of the cancer risk process?  What sort of
> > >biology is it that doesn't take into account the genetic uniqueness of each
> > >sexually reproduced organism on earth?  What needs to be done to get
> > >radiation physicists to think like biologists?  Is there any hope?
> > >
> > >Paul Unrau
> > >RB & HP Branch
> > >AECL
> > >UnrauP@aecl.ca
> 
>         From my personal point of view, all that is required is answering
> questions like the one I raised. Many thanks for your help on this.
>         It still seems remarkable to me that, if cancers were caused by a
> single hit on a single DNA molecule, the cancer risk would be roughly the
> same for all animals even though the number of DNA molecules varies by
> many orders of magnitude. It isn't impossible to understand, but it seems
> like a remarkable coincidence.

But of course Pual Unrau said rhetorically: "What sort of biology is it that
doesn't take into account genetics, development, and known aspects of the
cancer risk process?" And the answer is "radiation biology that still
considers that the LNT could be right", that explicitly ignores "genetics,
development, and known aspects of the cancer risk process" as demonstrated by
Walinder, and Kondo, Trosko, and hundreds of other biologists and oncologists
that are considering biological response (cellular, molecular, and
physiological evidence, including molecular epidemiology) rather than the
"billiard ball biology" concepts of the physicists of the ICRP and NCRP. Which 
has led to the demise of radiobiology as a credible discipline as the true
biologists were defunded to the extent that DOE has a program to "recreate"
the discipline (except that they would use this to further fund only their LNT 
proponents). Shades of Lysenko. 

And, "What sort of biology is it that doesn't take into account the genetic
uniqueness of each sexually reproduced organism on earth?" 

"What needs to be done to get radiation physicists to think like biologists? 
Is there any hope?" It's not a 'radiation physicist' problem, it's the
standard radiation science policy of who gets funded and who keeps quiet. As a 
new Medical Physics member of the Governor's Adv Council said concisely to a
critic after an extended discussion in our last meeting: The LNT is dead. No
one in our profession believes it anymore. It's not the way biology responds
to radiation. 

> Bernard L. Cohen

Thanks.

Regards, Jim Muckerheide
jmuckerheide@delphi.com