[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: Radiation to the breast is hormetic at 0.15 Gy
Richard Smart <R.Smart@UNSW.EDU.AU> wrote:
(correctly):
> The Canadian Fluoroscopy Cohort Study was updated
by a further 7 years
> follow-up and reported in Radiation Research, 145,
694-707 (1996) by Howe
> GR and McLaughlin J.
>
> The hormetic effects were not observed.
>
> The relative risks for Breast Cancer Mortality in
the Canadian Fluoroscopy
> Cohort Study were as follows, including the 95%
conf. interval:
>
> <0.01 Sv RR = 1.00
> 0.01-0.49 Sv RR = 1.09 (0.88-1.34)
> 0.50-0.99Sv RR = 1.11 (0.86-1.43)
> 1.00-1.99 Sv RR = 1.38 (1.07-1.77)
> 2.00-2.99 Sv RR = 1.69 (1.14-2.51)
> 3.00-3.99 Sv RR = 2.36 (1.49-3.75)
> 4.00-6.99 Sv RR = 1.92 (1.08-3.42)
> 7.00-9.99 Sv RR = 7.57 (3.48-16.4)
> >10.00 Sv RR = 27.9 (13.7-57.1)
Note Howe reports a dose range of 0.01-0.49 Sv as the first dose group.
Note that Miller 1989 (Howe was an author) reports dose ranges of:
Gy SMR (#deaths)
0.0-0.09 585.8 (288)
0.10-0.19 389.0 (29)
0.20-0.29 497.8 (24)
0.30-0.39 630.5 (17)
0.40-0.69 632.1 (19)
>0.70 873.1 (14)
The 0.10-0.19 group is the largest group, 2.7 std deviations below zero.
Howe said he reported 0-0.49 “because the lower dose groups are not informative”.
Note that Howe 1996 simply, intentionally, suppressed the data.
The draft NCRP SC1-6 report now refs a “1998 preprint” of another Howe
update in their desperate effort to maintain the LNT, with no
explanation at all of the data or the scientific basis for this
’analysis’ of the data. Howe has to do something to recover from the
wide knowledge that the 1996 report suppressed the data. However, no
Howe 98 is reported in the literature, and nothing yet in 1999 in a
PubMed search.
Note also that Miller 89 reports an LNT straight line that ignored this
data - presumably to get published, or at least to keep funding.
Pollycove 94 reported that the data were plotted by Ted Webster
at the time (maybe from a preprint? or as a reviewer?), and it was
discussed at a large meeting, so everyone knew the hormestic
character of hte data.
See the curve at http://cnts.wpi.edu/RSH/Figures/Docs/MP98_fig16.gif
Pollycove notes that Miller reports 60 cases/rem in 1 million women, or
900 excess cases of
breast cancer at 15 rem in 1 million women, while the data at 15 rem
report 10,000 FEWER breast cancer cases than the controls - 1/3
reduction, consistent with data on breast cancer in some mice studies
(eg, James and Makinodan - 92?; Makinodan 96; Liu 97)
Note also that Miller 89 is the second largest study in the BEIR V
report (after RERF) in the six "datasets used for model fitting" - of
course reporting the linear result from the paper (remember, the
disconnect with the data was well known by the BEIR V authors).
The BEIR V committee members and NCRP presenters continued to report
Miller 89 as ‘proof’ of the linear dose response in presentations long
afterwards. They said it and were challenged in our sessions in
Philadelphia in 95, and have since in audiences that do not know better.
(Of course, since Howe 96, they now use it to ‘show’ the LNT is
supported by the ‘data’.)
Regards, Jim Muckerheide
Radiation, Science, and Health
==============================
>
> Regards
>
> Richard
>
> >JOHN CAMERON wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> Dear Colleagues, I haven't read the NCRP Report
No. 85 but I am somewhat
> >> familiar with the Canadian study of breast
cancer reported by Miller et al
> >> in the N. Engl. J. Medicine 1989: 321;
1285-1289. That shows data to
> >> indicate an increase of breast cancer for doses
at 0.35 and 0.55 Gy.with a
> >> RR of 1.2/Gy However at 0.15 Gy the breast
cancer incidence is reduced
> >> about 35% from the unirradiated controls. It is
statistically significant
> >> at the 95% confidence level. The breast cancer
incidence at 0.25 Gy is a
> >> lower than for the controls but only about at
one std. dev.
>
> Richard Smart PhD
> Department of Nuclear Medicine
> St. George Hospital
> Kogarah, NSW 2217
> Australia
> Tel:61 2 9350 3112
> Fax:61 2 9350 3991
> Email:R.Smart@unsw.edu.au
************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html