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Saturday, January 12, 2013

James Conca Remains A HP Denier

He writes at the science journal (HA!) Forbes about an upcoming United Nations report.  I've pointed out his errors before, just search his name here if you are interested.  I also mentioned that upcoming report before.

I commented at the Forbes website (under Anon, because for some reason the software didn't accept my name):


"You are misinterpreting a detection threshold (where health effects cannot be statistically discerned) with an effect threshold. In order to determine if an effect is still plausible below a detection threshold, one has to look to basic mechanisms and surrogates.

The basic mechanism, that DNA is ionized by even a single photon, and that DNA repair mechanisms are not 100% perfect, suggests that there is damage below the epidemiological detection threshold. When we use non-human animals (where we can have large numbers and control exposures) we find cancer induction at lower doses.

So LNT still applies, but we use a dose and dose rate effectiveness factor to estimate the slope of the line below the human epidemiological detection threshold using non-human data.

There is no evidence Muller lied about anything. In Muller’s speech he did not use the word “linear” at all, and only once did he use “threshold” in passing. Calabrese has manufactured a controversy to promote his hormesis society and its agenda of which Jerry Cuttler is also associated."

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Of course, even using our current cancer risk estimates, the risks are very low for most of the Japanese people and "not a big deal" as Conca states.  But obviously too, most cancers won't manifest for years, and any increase will likely be below a human epidemiological threshold.

Conca's view is wrong about natural background radiation levels, though I didn't respond to that particular issue in my Forbes comment.  I discussed that issue earlier here.

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