Re: LNT, regs and lives

["Otto G. Raabe" <ograabe@ucdavis.edu>]

September 7, 1999
Davis, CA

The supporters of the LNT hypothesis for radiation carcinogenesis are
sustained primarily by the reports from RERF in which linear models are
used to evaluate the atomic bomb survivor data. The three points that seem
to be consistently raised are these:

(1) Pierce et al. (Rad. Research 146:1-27, 1996) showed a statistically
significant increase in solid tumor incidence at 0.05 Sv compared to
smaller doses and supralinearity (bigger slope) at low doses (higher than
linear risk).

(2) Doll and Wakeford (Br. J. Radiol. 70: 130-139, 1997) analyzed the Alice
Stewart et al. studies of childhood cancer in children whose mothers had
been X-rayed during pregnancy and showed a statistically significant
increase in cancer for doses about or lower than 10 mGy (0.01 Sv) and a
risk slope of 6% per Sv, which agrees with the linear model predictions.

(3) Dan Benison says everyone agrees that the risk is linear above 0.2 Sv
and since we all receive this much exposure during a normal lifetime from
normal background radiation, we are all up the linear curve. So, the shape
of the dose-response curve at lower doses is unimportant.

If you want to talk LNT with its proponents, you need to address these points.

Otto 
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