My apologies to Mr. Perle

[RADIATION HEALTH DIVISION <RADHLTH@gam10.med.navy.mil>]

My sincere apologies to Mr. Sandy Perle for mistaking him for Mrs. Perle.  I
now realize that I have email pen-pals that I consider good friends whose
specific gender I don't know as well simply because I never asked.  Please
forgive me.  It won't happen again.  And thank you to those who have offered
sincere help to any answers that I might have in the future concerning
radiation health.

Kevin Allen
Radiation Health Department
Naval Hospital Guam

	----------
	From:  Sandy Perle [SMTP:sandyfl@earthlink.net]
	Sent:  Thursday, September 02, 1999 1:09 PM
	To:  Multiple recipients of list
	Subject:  Radiation Panel Makeup Protested

	Wednesday September 1 4:22 PM ET 

	Radiation Panel Makeup Protested

	WASHINGTON (AP) - A prestigious panel of scientists trying to 
	determine the cancer risks from low doses of radiation is embroiled 
	in controversy even before its first meeting. Critics contend the 
	group is dominated by members beholden to the nuclear industry.  

	``A campaign is under way to further relax already weak radiation 
	protection standards,'' more than 130 environmental, health and 
	anti-nuclear activists wrote the National Academy of Sciences this 
	week, protesting the composition of the review committee.  

	They argued that the committee does not represent the broad 
	spectrum of scientific opinion on the issue. Scientists whose 
	studies have found elevated cancer levels from low-dose radiation 
	exposure at some nuclear weapons facilities were excluded from 
	the committee, they said.  

	At the same time, the committee members include a significant 
	number of scientists who have maintained that current 
	assumptions about low-dose radiation overstate the health risks. 
	Some of the members have asserted there is a dose threshold 
	below which radiation is not harmful at all.  

	The academy's National Research Council, which selected the 
	scientists, recently added five additional members and forced 
	another to withdraw. The 20-member committee will examine the 
	issue ``from a scientific point of view without politics and without

	bias,'' Evan Douple, director of the council's radiation studies 
	branch, said in an interview.  

	Those on both sides of the dispute agree that much is at stake in 
	the three-year study being undertaken by the special panel, which 
	holds its first meeting Thursday.  

	The threat of cancer from large amounts of radiation is clear. But 
	does exposure to small doses above background radiation over 
	many years put people at risk? Many scientists are not sure and 
	hope the special review panel will provide some answers.  

	Formally known as the Committee on Biological Effects of Ionizing 
	Radiation, or BEIR, the panel has such prestige that its findings 
	are likely to have tremendous impact on what radiation levels will 
	be allowed by the government at abandoned nuclear power plants, 
	in the cleanup of nuclear weapons production facilities and at 
	nuclear waste disposal sites.  

	``The importance is enormous,'' said Dr. Rudi Nussbaum, professor 
	emeritus of physics and environmental sciences at Portland State 
	University, adding that the BEIR findings will be key in ``shaping 
	legislation and eventually protecting or not protecting people from 
	radiation exposure.''  

	Nussbaum was one of eight scientists who complained in a letter 
	to the National Academy of Sciences that the panel ``is dominated 
	by individuals whose work has been conducted within institutional 
	settings heavily influenced by organizations with interests in the 
	nuclear industry and does not include a significant number of 
	persons who have demonstrated independence from this 
	institutional setting.''  

	``This is a very lopsided committee with predictable outcome,'' 
	added Nussbaum in an interview.

	Recently one scientist, Kenneth Mossman, a professor of health 
	physics at Arizona State University who had become a prime 
	target of the critics' attacks, was dropped from the panel.  

	In an interview Wednesday, Mossman said the panel represents ``a 
	spectrum'' of scientific opinion. He said his critics are trying to
put 
	scientists with ``extremist'' views on the panel. He said his own 
	views had been distorted, particularly by anti-nuclear groups who 
	characterized him as ``a vigorous advocate of relaxing radiation 
	standards.''  

	``My position is at these very low doses it's not appropriate to 
	select any (cancer risk) model because there is such tremendous
	scientific uncertainty,'' said Mossman.

	The scientific debate over health risks from exposure to low-dose 
	radiation has been brewing for years.

	One problem is that the number of cancers from low-dose radiation 
	has not been measured independently. Current standards for 
	radiation levels are set by extrapolating from the increased cancers

	observed from exposure to high doses, principally among victims of 
	the World War II atomic bomb blasts in Japan.  

	Many scientists have adopted - and past BEIR committees have 
	endorsed - an assumption that risks from low doses follow a 
	``linear'' model that assumes each unit of radiation, no matter how 
	small, can cause cancer.  

	But other scientists, including many of the scientists on the BEIR 
	review panel, contend the linear theory overstates the cancer risks 
	and that as a result the radiation exposure levels may, in fact, be 
	too stringent.  

	``The BEIR committee has been loaded up with people from this 
	side of the debate,'' complained Daniel Hirsch, executive director
of 
	Committee to Bridge the Gap, a California-based anti-nuclear 
	watchdog group. He said it includes none of the reputable 
	scientists who argue the risks may be even greater than now 
	assumed.  

	``Industry can save billions of dollars if they can get a packed
panel 
	and reduce the radiation standards,'' said Hirsch. ``But millions of

	people would be exposed to additional radiation.'' 

	------------------------
	Sandy Perle
	E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net
	Personal Website: http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/1205

	
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