Re: RE Useful Dental X-Rays

[MICHELE ROUNDS <MR.RB@worldnet.att.net>]

al, read below. joyce gilbert is the top dnfsb hp. sorta' makes you wanna'
puke don't it...hank reardon

At 03:53 PM 10/31/97 +0000, you wrote:
>RE  Useful Dental X-Rays
>
>>>> "Dr. Marvin Goldman" <mgoldman@ucdavis.edu> 10/30/97 07:13pm >>>
>in response to Messrs. Rima and Tschaeche wrote:
>....
>The ranting on low level risks seems never to abate.  We all know
>that the science of molecular biology still has given us no direct proof of
>cancer risk (and it's only cancer risk in this debate), even though some
>induced genetic and molecular markers in today's literature may be steps on
>the way to a full understanding of all the mechanistic pathways and steps
>from dose absorption to cancer manifestation.  Nor can anyone with any
>understanding of epidemiology expect that epidemioogical approach can ever
>show the risk from millirem sized doses even if the ICRP coefficients are
>correct.   When it come to a religious belief level of discourse, rather
>than objectiviely  interpreting a science data set, we all lose
>credibility.
>
>	The absence of "bodies in the street" proves nothing when dealing
>with minute probabilistic risks.  For what it's worth, I have no problem
>with the linear, no-threshold hypothesis as a model for regulatory policy.
>I do have a problem with those who selectively plot data points along a
>straight line and insist that it confirms the linear proportional risk
>coefficient down to the last photon.  Counting "hypothetical bodies" at
>microSv exposures is a way to play with collective doses, but it's not real
>nor realistic.  Biology  just does not work that way, and in due course the
>window of insight will open.  Sadly, support for the research to speed up
>the opening of that window is limited, so we may have to be patient.  Until
>then, I for one am satisfied with the conservative LNT philosophy, but not
>the further subfractionation of the limits to ridiculous  operational micro
>compartments.  As for the "true risk", to me at this time, the universal
>curve of risk still looks sigmoid, with the region from about 0.1-0.2 Sv to
>1-3 Sv appearing to be fairly linear.  Period!
>
>	I realize that each of us has an opinion, that most are not ready
>to change their opinion, and that  if the data were really there, this
>issue might actually be settled, (if an issue can be said to ever be truly
>settled).  It's not a matter of being an "old man worried that he might be
>wrong", but whether the cold scientific data are tight enough.  To which
>this old scientist says the data are good, but still not tight enough. I'd
>welcome seeing an increase in the research dollars rather than substituting
>an increase in reactive decibels.  But then I'm only one voice.
>
>Marvin Goldman
>mgoldman@ucdavis.edu
>-------------------------------------------
>
>I'd like to add my voice to Dr. Goldman's.  And I hope there are many of us
in the rational middle of this sometimes
>irrational muddle.  LNT is neither holy writ nor the devil's doing.
Sincere and thoughtful people can, and do, differ. 
>Let's cool it and proceed with the work of wresting her secrets from Mother
Nature and, in the meantime,
>protecting people from harm based on less than perfect information.
>
>Only the opinion of J P Davis
>joyced@dnfsb.gov
>