- 26 the author meant by this term, and "a few picocuries of alpha
activity".
Page 13, lines 15-17 - "The published evidence, reviewed above,
clearly indicates that a linear extrapolation to lower doses and
dose rates is not conservative for internal alpha emitters."
Comments:
This statement is not clear about anything in it, not the “published
evidence" or what is "reviewed above" that is pertinent to the statement,
not the level of dose or dose rate (and associated efficiency for
the effect) from which extrapolation linearly is supposed to be "not
conservative", not the shape of the dose-effect curve that is regarded
as nonconservative as compared with the linear one, not the meaning
of "conservative", not the effect being considered in the statement, and
not the kinds of alpha emitters referred to or their properties.
this is a sweeping and poorly founded generalization.
Again,
See “wyprevious
comments on the author's pages 4 and 5.
Page 13, lines 17-19 - "The initial effects of alpha interactions
with cell chromosomes are irreversible and thus will vary linearly
with alpha dose rate."
Comments:
On his page 3, the author states:
"When alphas interact with the
chromosome or its gene in the nucleus of the cell, the dense Lonization
in the track of the alpha particles give rise to closely spaced breaks
which bring about a wide variety of irreversible chromosome structural
changes, or mutations.
X-ray and y-ray interactions give rise toa
diffuse distribution of ions, resulting in widely spaced individual
breaks, most of which can undergo repair by recombining without structural
change.
Thus permanent structural changes for x-raysand Y-rays are
proportional to the square of the dose, with greatly reduced incidence