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Re: absence of proof -Reply



Mike McNaughton wrote:
> 
> >I'm curious just how one derives a "linear risk coefficient from
> >significantly non-linear exposure-response data ..."
> 
> Caution: the radium-dial painter data are consistent with the linear model.
> The data look inconsistent because they are drawn on a logarithmic graph.
> On a this graph, the linear model transforms to an exponential ,and
> it is possible to draw a reasonable "exponential" fit through these data.

Don’t understand. There are no effects in 1000’s cases <1000 R, ~250uCi
(not pCi) ingestion.

Even Robley Evan’s 1974 data of a few hundred cases on a non-log graph are:
http://cnts.wpi.edu/RSH/Figures/1-2/4/1/Evans_74_F4.GIF

Evans noted that the Gofman-Tamplin linear model goodness-of-fit is
1/200,000,000!?; the “full range” line 1/200,000, with BEIR 1972
“between these”. Later BEIR reports are closer to Gofman-Tamplin, that
Lauiston Taylor called “immoral” in 1980.

Bob Thomas showed that just using the cancer cases (65 total, in 62
young women dial painters, of 1391), even ignoring those cases with no
cancer, effects are log-normal and project to a threshold of not less
than ~400 R.

[It’s almost funny to think EPA would claim ‘non-lineear data’ if any
remote basis could justify  linear - though earlier small-numbers data
was so claimed by Mays etc before the Center for Human Radiobiology data
and the 1981 Int’l Symposium (see HPJ Suppl 1 1983) that caused DOE to
shut it down to suppress the data before it became statistically
significant, including hormetic results.]

Regards, Jim Muckerheide
muckerheide@mediaone.net
Radiation, Science, and Health
==============================

> mike
> "Shlala gashle" (Zulu greeting, meaning "Stay safe")
> mike (mcnaught@LANL.GOV)
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