RE: Scientists debate level of tolerance to radiation

["Tsurikov, Nick" <nick.tsurikov@iluka.com>]

Dear Radsafers,

Could someone please point to me what is the 'new Russian study' and how one
could get it?  Was it published somewhere and who are the authors?

Kind regards
Nick Tsurikov
Eneabba, Western Australia
nick.tsurikov@iluka.com
World Collection of Radiation Links
http://www.westnet.net.au/Walkabout/

----------
From:  Michael C. Baker[SMTP:mcbaker@lanl.gov]
Sent:  Thursday, 22 July 1999 21:24
To:  Multiple recipients of list
Subject:  Scientists debate level of tolerance to radiation 




>http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/1999/0721/hom13.htm
>
>==================================================
>July 21, 1999
>
>Scientists debate level of tolerance to radiation
>
>By Dick Ahlstrom
>
>The argument that there is no safe level of exposure for nuclear radiation
is
>wrong and is not supported by scientific studies, according to a US
>researcher who said that cells were very efficient at repairing radiation
>damage.
>
>"A single fallacy is often more acceptable than a complicated truth," said
Dr
>Otto Raabe of the University of California, Davis. He was addressing a
>radiation conference in Dublin yesterday organised by the Dublin Institute
of
>Technology during a session on the "linear no-threshold" debate.
>
>The linear no-threshold (LNT) theory assumes that any exposure to radiation
>carries a risk of developing cancer. It is widely applied by radiological
>protection agencies and endorsed by the International Commission on
>Radiological Protection (ICRP).
>
>"The evidence for the threshold has been known for a long time," Dr Raabe
>said. A new Russian study pointed towards a threshold for radiation, a
level
>that the body could tolerate without subsequent cancers. Breaks in the
>genetic code inside the cell were commonplace and quickly repaired. On
>average there are up to 150,000 breaks per cell daily. "We already have a
>background of DNA breaks," he said, and any contribution to this total by
>radiation was minor.
>
>"There are still uncertainties that we can't work out because of
statistical
>difficulties," he acknowledged, but there was no connection between
threshold
>and risk. Dr Jack Valentin, scientific secretary of the ICRP, defended the
>LNT theory. "There is no better hypothesis," he said.
>
>There was no dispute that radiation could cause DNA damage and that such
>damage was an initiating event in cancer development. Single-strand breaks
>were easily repaired, but studies had shown it was not so with
double-strand
>breaks. He referred to a 1996 study which suggested that very low radiation
>doses could induce cancers in utero and a UN study soon to be published
>indicated that cancers could be caused at very low radiation doses. Both
>sides were hampered by a lack of statistical power to determine what
happened
>with low-dose exposures.

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