might be beneficial genetically because it tends to remove the weaker
members of a population.
10.
The report would have been improved if a Table 3 had been added
giving the estimated genetic damage.
The overall genetic risk was
given as 6 x 107? to 1.1 x 10°? genetic mutation/gentically significant rem.
This upper value is greater than the upper value of cancer
risk so the reader should be given the
final estimates of genetic
risk.
ay
The report is
in error in stating there are no human exposure
ata at low dose ranges, e.g. studies of in utero exposure and data on
Hanford radiation workers are iow dose studies.
12.
|
The report uses only the linear and linear quadratic models, yet
much of the data on human population exposure conforms best with a
super linear model (e.g. effect = c
Y¥dose).
In other words, the
cancer coefficients are a power of dose less than unity in a number of
cases or the cancers induced per rem are greater at low doses than at
high
doses
because
of
overkill
at
high
doses,
damage
to
the
reticuloendythelial system, etc.
It may not be a good assumption that the cancer risk on these
islands is the same as that in the U.S. because the natural background
radiation here is between 1/3 and 1/2 that in the U.S. and the Hanford
radiation worker data suggest that about half the cancer per year in
the U.S. are the result of natural background radiation.
14.
The
I question that leukemia is one of the best understood cancers.
lack of
leukemia induction by radiation in Olmstead County of
Minnesota (Linos et al. - New Eng. J. Med. 1111, May 15, 1980) and in
the Hanford worker data (Mancuso, Stewart, and Kneale) suggest that
low chronic exposure
to normal population (those not subjected to
fire, blast, disease such an ankylosing spondylitis, etc.) die preferentially of forms of cancer other than leukemia.
15.
There is a peculiar statement on page 28 to the effect that the
BEIR III relative risk model gives a cancer risk 2 to 4 times the risk
estimates of UNSCEAR 1977 and so it seems reasonable to accept the
linear risk model instead.
16.
U.S.
,
Why was the life span of these islands chosen as 50 years?
The
life span is 70 years.
lic