The Linear No Threshold (LNT) rule, still enforced by the United States government, states that a single atom/molecule/radiated ion can cause cancer. A convincing case against this is growing as more historical scandal is unearthed. Dr. Edward Calabrese has dedicated his research life in toxicology to this cause. Ultimately the purpose of his work is to save 1000s of lives through more widespread use of radiation therapy and save billions of dollars needlessly trying to protect us from insignificant radiation which not only isn’t harmful, but in fact is helpful.
Digging into science and medical archives, Calabrese came up with more well documented and referenced papers proving the fraud. Meanwhile LNT has been perpetuated by a long line of scientists trying to protect the 1946 Nobel Prize winner Hermann J. Muller, who lied about his research.
The historic paper which fired up Calabrese most recently was by Edward B. Lewis, published in Science May 17, 1957. He was a young professor at the California Institute of Technology working in the area of Drosophilia (fruit fly) genetics. He had no background or training in radiation, leukemia, epidemiology, or statistical modeling — and yet the paper was accepted by the journal Science and even supported by the issue’s editorial. The paper focused more on the Precautionary Principle to the near exclusion of actual data in what can best be described as a naked effort to support an LNT. It came under significant criticism from scientists in the field and yet it transformed the process of cancer risk assessment leading to the adoption of the LNT.
Calabrese’s new paper in Environmental Research (online 13 March 2021), describing how unsound LNT science became accepted, reads like a mystery thriller. Edward B. Lewis became the “stalking horse” for his department head and later chairman of the US NAS BEAR Genetics Panel. BEAR stands for the Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation which ultimately determines medical standards for radiation exposure.
The concept of a “stalking horse” comes from the world of politics where a junior politician acts to promote the interests of a senior politician who remains unseen in case the actions might damage him or her but nevertheless wants to promote a debate or challenge to an opponent.
Lewis became motivated to assess the leukemia and radiation issue after a July 1955 memo from George Beadle, his academic department chair of the biology department. They were asked to assess the effects of ionizing radiation within the emerging radiation fallout controversy following the 1945 atomic bomb blasts in Japan.
Lewis took the challenge and by November of 1955 had turned out a preliminary memo on the subject. Late that month the BEAR Panel had its first meeting from which they published a report recommending the LNT in June, 1956. Not long after, their report came under negative pressure as the results of a long-term study on 70,000 offspring of survivors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima showed no hereditary damage. The panel simply ignored the study and decided to instead rely only on Lewis’s fruit-fly studies as a basis for human risk assessment.
If you’re shocked at this, well … you should be. This lack of ethics in science has only grown to the detriment of all science. In this case the ramifications have had deadly consequences.
Beadle, who became the Chair of the BEAR Panel, tried to suppress the growing opposition to LNT among other geneticists after the 70,000 human offspring study was released. He used his influence to redirected the panel’s focus to other issues. It seems helping Lewis get his flawed paper published in Science magazine was something of a crowning achievement for Beadle, and he stopped at nothing to ensure the LNT theory remained gospel.
In spite of this Lewis came under withering criticism for his Science article. The BEAR panel remained silent, hanging him out to dry as he had already served their purpose in solidifying the establishment of the LNT. Later it would be 1946 Nobel-Prize winner Hermann Muller’s blatant lies described in my earlier article at CFACT August 18, 2020, who would be responsible for the whole world being duped by this fraudulent science.
In an article published with co-authors Nicholas D. Priest and Walter J. Kozumbo on 29 March online at Chemico-Biological Interactions, Calabrese and his colleagues described how their research further buries the Linear No-Threshold model for radiation exposure. As stated, current regulatory cancer risk assessment principles and practices only assume the impacts of low doses of radiation, extrapolating in a linear fashion from the impacts of high doses of radiation supposed impacts from doses that are orders of magnitude smaller. Basically, the medical profession assumes that there is no threshold below which no damage would occur.
Common sense should tell us that this is likely wrong. After all we know that dozens of liquids and solids that we eat or drink would be terrible in large quantities but can not only be harmless, but good in small quantities. There are all kinds of trace elements like selenium that your body needs but are poisonous in quantity. Obviously overeating and even drinking water can kill you. This was noted back in the 16th century by chemist Parcellus who said “The Dose Makes The Poison” — and Alice Ottoboni even wrote a wonderful and highly instructive book by that title in 1984.
While not wanting your eyes to glaze over, I can tell you that Dr. Calabrese’s new study took a look at tumor latency which is the time-to-tumor following exposure to a carcinogen. Evidence for and against the concept of carcinogen-induced tumor latency is presented, discussed, and then examined with respect to its relationship to dose, dose rates, and the dose-related concepts of initiation of tumor promotion, tumor regression, tumor incidence, and hormesis (the concept of reversing effects). He and his team offer considerable experimental evidence that tumor latency is inversely related to the dose of carcinogens. Lower doses of carcinogens display quantifiable discrete latency threshold below which the promotion and consequently the progression and growth of tumors are delayed and prevented in a normal life span.
Like so many myths that direct public policy these days:
IT IS TIME TO ELIMINATE THE LINEAR NO THRESHOLD MODEL FOR RADIATION EXPOSURE!