Re: AZ HPS and BELLE and Hormesis

["Dr. Marvin Goldman" <mgoldman@ucdavis.edu>]

>---------- Forwarded message -----------------------------------------------
>Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 11:51:10 -0400 (EDT)
>From: Edward J. Calabrese <edwardc@schoolph.umass.edu>
>To: bill.pitchford@asu.edu
>
>Dear Bill:
>
>It was a pleasure to speak with you this week.  Thanks for your interest in
>BELLE and the visiting seminar/lecture program.  Let me suggest the
>following and see if this sounds attractive to you.  Over the past two years
>I have been developing a chemical hormesis data base.  This represents an
>strong effort to make a comprehensive search of the published literature on
>hormetic dose response relationships.  We have established very stringent
>entry criteria for inclusion into the data base.  While this work is
>continuing it is now quite evident that there are numerous reproducible
>examples of this phenomenon in the published literature.  While our efforts
>have focused on chemical examples to date, we plan to initiate a similar
>activity on ionizing radiation in the very near future.  I would recommend
>that a rather detailed sharing of the evolving data bases be provided as
>part of the content of the invited seminar.  This will place the discussion
>on clearly scientitic grounds rather than falling victim to any ideological
>orientation that others may have.  We have recently provided such a
>presentation to Exxon Biomedical with good success.
>
>The only problem that I see is that we are much further along with respect
>to the chemical hormesis data base than the radiation one.  Nonetheless, I
>think that this type of presentation is in the proper direction and places
>the discusson as that is:Evaluating Hormesis as a Scientific Hypothesis.
>
>Let me know why the interest of your organization is with respect to this
>concept.
>
>
>Sincerely,
>
>
>Ed
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Any of you have any strong feelings about particular members of the
>committee that would make such an event worth travelling to ?
>
>The AZ HPS executive council will be voting on whether or not to sponsor
>this event during our Wednesday meeting.
>
>If anyone would like to express their interests and desires, now is the time.
>
>Further information will be available Thursday.
>
>Thanks and Enjoy...
>
>Bill Pitchford                  Bill.Pitchford@asu.edu
>Radiation Protection Facility   (602)965-6140 voice
>Arizona State University        http://www.asu.edu
>Campus Box 873501               (602)965-6609 facsimile
>Tempe, Arizona 85287-3501       http://physics.isu.edu
One note of caution:

I've reviewed most of the hormesis literature on radiation and I would
strongly encourage you to clearly separate the deterministic, graded
effects literature from effects that are clearly stochastic, probalilistic.
The adaptive response in physiology, es[pecially in plants is clear; but
the true reduction of cancer risk in radiation exposed mammals is quite
another thing.  There has been much confusion on this and the main interest
in the radiation arena is whether the alleged effect is stable and persists
long enough to have an influence on the incidence of late appearing
cancers.  Cancer is the endpoint and every other endpoint serves to cloud
the issue.  I have yet to see a peer reviewedpaper which proved this.
mgoldman@ucdavis.edu