Re: Opinions

[Al Tschaeche <antatnsu@pacbell.net>]

R. William Field wrote:
> 
> Al,
> 
> I am surprised you think we are 180 degrees opposed.  I thought we had
> found a few items in the past we agreed upon.
> 
> In answer to your question below.  I think the 2 people need to find an
> area of common agreement and work from there.  An agreement of 100% may be
> unreachable.  A possible initial goal may be a 50% agreement with wide
> confidence intervals.
> 
> Let's first agree to take our discussions of the listserv.

I assume you mean "take our discussions OFF the listserv?"  That's
fine.  When we get to some agreement, we might want to tell others our
pearls of wisdom.

I didn't mean to say that our points of view on the LNTH are 180 degrees
apart.  I was only introducing the question that followed.  I don't know
yet how far apart our views are.

Your response to the question is similar to many I have had in the past
from those to whom I posed the question.  Remember, I didn't say the two
people had to agree 100 percent.  I only said they each had to feel they
had won 100 percent.   Compromise is really not OK in this setting
because, usually, compromise means each party gives up something and
doesn't really want to.  So compromisers don't win 100%.  The solution
to the problem requires a shift in paradigm just as letting go of the
LNTH does.  The win-win situation is talked about a great deal in
management classes, but is not realized much in the real world.  I'm
looking for the technology that will permit 100% winners every time. 
But on to the LNTH.

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start (with
apologies to Sound of Music).
It seems that there are at least two schools of thought about low dose
effects and how to approach appropriate dose control and limitation.

Can we first agree that we don't know how cancer is produced?  And we
don't know how radiation produces cancer?  And we don't know if low
doses have a harmful effect, no effect, or have a beneficial effect? 
Also, can we agree that there are harmful effects of short term exposure
to high doses, but we don't know the effects of long term exposure to
cumulative high doses.  Further, can we agree that the atom bomb
survivor data is short term, high dose data and that cancer induction
can be related to dose for that data?

If we can agree about those things, then can we agree, in the face of
much unknowing, that there are at least two ways we can go vis-a-vis
guessing at what the low dose effects might be: first, we can use the
LNTH with zero intercept, or, second, we can assume a threshold at some
yet-to-be determined dose and say, since we have no knowledge of low
dose effects, and we are unwilling to extrapolate from high dose
effects, we will set the threshold at some safe distance below where the
high dose data end (a factor of 10, for example) and wait until those
exposed to such low doses exhibit an effect, if any.

Lets talk about the above and see where we get.

Regards Al