Re: Does Size Matter?

[mephillips12@magnox.co.uk]

     Thanks, all, for the responses to my question, both light hearted and
     serious.

     It would not surprise me if the average body weight of a war-time
     Japanese population was half that of a modern western population. If
     the dose response, ie likelihood of morbidity to an individual per (J
     / kg) of absorbed dose is established for a lightweight population, it
     looks to me as though this would lead to an underprediction of
     response for a heavier population.

     I don't think that it matters whether one is discussing external gamma
     exposure or ingested exposure when considering this, as in both cases
     the number of DNA breaks will be more-or-less proportional to body
     mass for a given dose.

     It would be difficult to justify altering individual dose limits on
     the basis of body weight, given the inherent variablility in
     individual susceptibiliites due to lifestyle, diet and weight(!), but
     isn't mean population weight something which should be incorporated
     into population dose calculations? I realise that the uncertainties in
     all of the calculations would probably swamp any observable effect,
     but this is not a reason for ignoring a potentially significant bias.

     Regards,

     Martin (fruit for lunch today!)

     Martin Phillips
     Plant & Environmental Radioological Measurements
     BNFL Magnox Generation Division
     m.e.phillips@magnox.co.uk


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