Further confirmation of reality - the earth isn't flat

[Muckerheide <muckerheide@mediaone.net>]

Group,

The following is a press release on the 15 May 1998 Science paper from Dr.
Steven Hrudey's group at U. Alberta as forwarded by Jim Dukelow, of RISKANAL,
to RADSAFE:

Note specifically the recognition of biopositive actions of low doses of
radiation. 

This is consistent with the data and implications of the expert review of the
model of DNA damage and response by Myron Pollycove and Ludwig Feinendegen,
which has been based on the best current scientific knowledge of the molecular 
and cellular biology, in which small increases in natural radiation explicitly 
stimulate and improve the DNA repair processes that apply to the 10^7 greater
DNA damage events from normal metabolism. 

It also recognizes the positive stimulation of the immune system, as known for
decades (actually for a more than a century - eg, Shrader 1896), and Dr.
Sakamoto's successful treatment of cancer (as a proven immune system stimulant
in 10 to 15 cSv fractions before high-dose local irradiation therapy). Dr.
Sakamoto's animal research and clinical tests have succeeded in such
treatment. But the data and confirmatory research has been actively suppressed
for more than a decade, in the interest of "radiation protection". (Perhaps
100s thousands of people/year have died of cancer unnecessarily from the 
suppression of this, and equivalent, research, and the failure to apply these 
results - while "radiation protection" is committed to the consume $Trillions 
from the public to reduce radiation to levels that are less than 0.1% of the 
variation in natural background radiation levels.) 

Note: President Clinton is vacationing again this year on Martha's Vineyard
(my family home), presumably again on the south shore, instead of his Wyoming
alternative. 

Perhaps he has been faithfully apprised by his dozens of diligent radiation
protection funded agencies that he is safer in a locaton that may have an 
annual dose of 60-80 cSv instead of 700+ cSv in some Wyoming locations (and
I'm sure they have explained how "the people are dying like flies" in Wyoming
:-)  


Now UNSCEAR is a target. Is this another program that may have let the truth 
get it "out of favor" with the radiation protection interests: so it must be
terminated? It doesn't seem that there are enough "vested interests" to make a
substantial objection, since it is dominated more by high level bureaucrats
with vested financial interests in the LNT, than as happened with DOE's 
effort to capture RERF (although the result on its compliance and complicity 
seems to have been even more effective than if DOE had actually captured it
:-) 


But as reported below, the data and the pressure continue to build. The end 
of the LNT is near; like the Berlin wall. The question is: Can this be done 
with a "constructive transition", as in some FSU and satellite countries, 
or will it need to be in a massive outrage at the "Lysenko science" that has
imprisoned, looted, and even killed, the public, as in some other FSU and 
satellite countries? And who will the public find to hang? Who will be able
to argue that they were "victims", who were "not listened to", and who were 
the "oppressors", in this 'system'?

Your thoughts?

Regards, Jim Muckerheide
Radiation, Science, and Health
==============================

From: Steve Hrudey 

Major Breakthrough in Assessing DNA Damage and Repair

Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, 
Canada. 

Faculty of Medicine and Oral Health Sciences researchers at the 
University of Alberta, Dr. X. Chris Le, Dr. Michael Weinfeld and their 
colleagues, published in the May 15 edition of Science (280: 1066 - 
1069; editorial commentary on 1101-1102) a report on a new 
ultrasensitive technique for measuring DNA damage. 

This technique has resulted in a 10,000 to 100,000 fold increase in 
sensitivity over the current state-of-the-art for detecting DNA damage.  
The sensitivity of this advance allows, for the first time, the accurate 
detection of DNA damage at realistic low levels which are relevant to 
environmental exposures to DNA damaging agents like those which initiate 
cancer (e.g. ionizing radiation, chemical carcinogens). 

This new technique couples immunochemical recognition (the process by 
which the body recognizes foreign substances) with capillary 
electrophoresis (an advanced separation technique) and laser-induced 
fluorescence (a highly sensitive detection technique) (patent pending) 

The new technique is also extremely specific which makes it very 
powerful for studying the mechanisms of DNA damage and repair.  These 
capabilities stand to greatly facilitate advances in many aspects of 
research on cancer treatment and it should open valuable new avenues of 
investigation in a wide range of health research from studies on aging 
processes to evaluation of cancer causation and therapy.  Because the 
method is based on antibody detection (the immune response to foreign 
substances) it can be adapted to a wide range of other very specific 
forms of DNA damage and some of these new applications are currently 
under development. 

The prospects for advances in risk assessment resulting from this 
discovery are exciting. 

Until now, risk assessment has emphasized only carcinogen exposure, with 
the assumption that cancer risk was determined primarily by the degree 
of exposure to DNA-damaging carcinogens, even at very low levels.  

>>> A new perspective is that cancer risk for many 
>>> low level environmental exposures may be determined 
>>> more by a person's DNA repair capability than by 
>>> that person's low level exposure to carcinogens. 
 
This discovery will allow validation of that new perspective by allowing 
the direct study of DNA repair.  This capability can dramatically improve  
our approaches to quantitative cancer risk assessment and ultimately our 
ability to set sound priorities for environmental health. 

The discovery by Dr. Le and his colleagues offers the prospects of being 
able to measure DNA damage with sufficient sensitivity and specificity 
to allow testing of dose-response models for low level cancer risk from 
individual carcinogens.  

>>> The paper in Science describes an experiment to 
>>> measure DNA repair caused by ionizing radiation.  
>>> This showed that giving a low dose of radiation to 
>>> human tumour cells, 4 hours before a clinical dose 
>>> of radiation (the level used in cancer treatment) 
>>> resulted in more rapid DNA repair than without the 
>>> prior low dose, likely by stimulating the DNA repair 
>>> enzymes. 

>>> This finding is the first direct evidence, 
>>> concerning DNA repair, of a controversial theory 
>>> that a low level of radiation may NOT be strictly  
>>> harmful but may in fact be helpful by stimulating  
>>> more rapid repair of DNA damage.

There are also substantial prospects of being able to automate the 
procedures to allow for monitoring of humans who may are exposed to 
carcinogens in the workplace or from environmental contamination 
sources for evidence of carcinogen-specific DNA damage. 

In their editorial summary, Dr. Richard Peters and Robert Sikorski 
commented: "Armed with such a specific and sensitive assay, one can only 
imagine some of the possibilities. For instance, scientists should more 
easily detect the type and frequency of DNA lesions in living tissues 
after exposure to environmental radiation or chemical carcinogens. 
Monoclonal antibodies targeted at other base lesions could be used to 
look at a series of DNA or RNA lesions. The system could also be used to 
monitor protein adducts or drug metabolites, as long as monoclonal 
antibodies are raised to specific moieties.  There is little doubt that, 
over the forseeable future, we will see an explosion in the number of 
reports making use of this seminal technique in the various fields of 
life sciences, from toxicology to molecular biology." 

This work was done in a collaborative manner between Dr. X. Chris Le and 
Dr. Michael Weinfeld with key input from Dr. S.A. Leadon, University of 
North Carolina School of Medicine. The other co-authors are Dr. James 
Xing, a post-doctoral fellow working with Dr. Le and Ms. Jane Lee, 
working with Dr. Weinfeld. This discovery arose from "curiosity driven" 
research funded through an individual research grant to Dr. Le from the 
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, from the 
National Cancer Institute of Canada and the Alberta Cancer Board to Dr. 
Weinfeld and from U.S. National Institutes of Health to Dr. Leadon.  Dr. 
Le was recruited through a grant to Dr. Hrudey's Eco-Research Chair in 
Environmental Risk Management from the Alberta Heritage Foundation for 
Medical Research. 

For information, contact:

Dr. Chris Le, 
Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences
at (403) 492-6416; 
fax (403) 492-0364
e-mail: xc.le@ualberta.ca;
www.ualberta.ca/~envrisk/erm.html

Dr. Michael Weinfeld,
Associate Professor of Experimental Oncology
at 011-44-171-269-3926;
fax 011-44-171-269-3801 
e-mail: weinfeld@icrf.icnet.uk

Steve E. Hrudey, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Professor of Environmental Health Sciences
Eco-Research Chair in Environmental Risk Management
13-103 Clinical Sciences Building
University of Alberta, Edmonton CANADA T6G 2G3
Phone: 403-492-6807  Fax: 403-492-0364
E-mail: Steve.Hrudey@UAlberta.Ca
Web Page: http://www.ualberta.ca/~envrisk/erm.html
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