steve schulin

from 'Radiation health effects news' page at nuclear.com
http://www.nuclear.com/index-Radiation.html

July 23, 2003

"Yet another incredible tale about the health benefits of chronic
exposure to radiation"

One of the poster papers at this week's annual meeting of the Health
Physics Society may prompt a lot more public health wonks to take the
hormesis theory much more seriously. Here's the abstract from an earlier
presentation on the research by the same team of Taiwanese researchers:

"There was an incredible radiological incident in Taiwan. About 1700
apartments were contaminated with Cobalt-60, and about 10,000 residents
in the contaminated apartments had received ... gamma radiation dose
average... about 0.34 Sv, highest ... 7 Sv until 2000. Based on the RERF
report and ICRP publication, such amount of radiation could induce the
residents to have many times ... excess spontaneous leukemia and some
excess solid cancer deaths... [A]ctually no excess leukemia and solid
cancer deaths were observed... [O]n the contrary, the overall
spontaneous cancer deaths of the residents were sharply reduced to only
3.6% of the general population. So that the radiation received
continuously or chronically (nomenclature hereafter as chronic
radiation) in the Co-60 contaminated apartments is always hormetic and
could effectively immune from cancers. It is different from the health
effects of radiation received instantaneously or acutely (nomenclature
hereafter as acute radiation) in the nuclear explosion or accident that
could cause higher cancer mortality, cause injure syndrome, and even
cause death in higher doses. As chronic radiation is very much similar
to the radiation received in the peaceful use of nuclear energy and
medical use of radiation, chronic radiation should never be afraid by
public but should be earnestly and medically employed as immunity from
cancers, and it might also immune from hereditary diseases. The
conventional... policies, standards and measures for radiation
protection should be managed separately for benefiting not only the
peaceful use of nuclear energy and medical use of radiation, but also
for effective... use... as immunity from cancers and hereditary
diseases..."

Source: Y.C. Luan (Nuclear Science & Technology Association, Taipei,
Taiwan), M.C. Shieh, S.T. Chen, W.K. Wang, K.L.Soong, C.M. Tsai, W.L.
Chen, T.S. Chou, S.H. Mong, J.T. Wu, C. P. Sun, "The Hormetic Health
Effects of Radiation Observed in the Incident of Co-60 Contaminated
Apartments in Taiwan", presentation at BELLE conference on Non-linear
Dose-Response Relationships in Biology, Toxicology and Medicine, June
11-13, 2002 [ online abstract --
http://www.belleonline.com/conferences/2002/abstracts/session3.html ].

I don't know of an online source for the full paper, or whether it has
been submitted to any journal. You may request a hard copy of the paper
from the lead authors: W.L. Chen and Y.C. Luan, Nuclear Sciences and
Technology Association, 4th F, W. 245, Sec. 3, Roosevelt Road, Taipei,
Taiwan, ROC.

karl johanson

useful


These discuss the idea.

http://www.alamut.com/proj/98/nuclearGarden/bookTexts/Rad_hormesis.html
http://www.angelfire.com/mo/radioadaptive/
http://cnts.wpi.edu/rsh/Data_Docs/index.html
http://www.ccr.jussieu.fr/curie.100/fulltext/jaworowski.html


Disinfection Wounds With Radiation
http://www.cns-snc.ca/branches/Toronto/radiation/disinfecting_wounds_with_ra
diation_14april2002.pdf