Re: rem vs. rad

[Bob Flood <bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

At 08:20 AM 3/31/98 -0600, you wrote:
>I've always read and heard simply that dose equivalent units can only be
>used to describe probablistic (stochastic) effects, rather than
>deterministic (non-stochastic) effects.  Typically, this would apply
>roughly from 0 to about a 0.50 Sv level for a short exposure... 

I've seen this, too, and I have a problem with it. Perhaps Alice Stewart or
Mr. Gofman can explain to me why we should apply the unit rem as an
indicator of risk of fatal cancer only to low doses and use the rad for
high doses, when the only reliable data available showing a relationship
between radiation exposure and cancer are high dose cases. If all we do is
based on the cancer histories of people who received 50 to 500 rad, and the
risk of that happening is estimated in units of rem, why would it be
(politically?) incorrect to describe doses over 50 as rem instead of rad?

Not enough to do this morning, I guess.


---------
Bob Flood
Dosimetry Group Leader
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
(650) 926-3793
bflood@slac.stanford.edu