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daniel corcos's avatar

It is not because the topic is complex. This is because it is the domain of the military.

https://danielcorcos.substack.com/p/bca

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Sobshrink's avatar

John Gofman was certainly brilliant, and he was also a man of contradictions. He was against all nuclear power plants, but in favor of nuclear weapons. Hmmm... He said there is no safe dose of radiation, in which case, we're all doomed, since we all are exposed to radiation daily (airline personnel even more so). I know somebody who worked at the nuclear test site in Nevada for decades, remained healthy, and died in his 90's. A black swan always disproves the absolute rule, such as "no safe dose." Yes, it's complicated. Only single-variable models are not complicated, and this most certainly is NOT that. As a shrink, I've learned that personality is as important as IQ when it comes to rationality. I appreciate Gofman's warning us of the dangers of radiation, but also suspect that due to his strong anti-nuclear stance, he was unable to acknowledge the validity of data in studies summarized in the link below, demonstrating that small doses of radiation may actually be helpful through a hormetic effect (like exercise and broccoli). I'm not going to intentionally expose myself to radiation to get such benefits, but neither will I stop getting my annual mammograms, while taking antioxidants, of course! :)

https://www.jpands.org/vol8no2/kauffman.pdf

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daniel corcos's avatar

The fundamental problem is that people confuse the dose from a chronic exposure with the dose received from an acute exposure, which is absurd.

https://danielcorcos.substack.com/publish/post/135112494

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Sobshrink's avatar

I tried to open the link you provided several times, but I got the message "This page isn't working" each time. Not sure what's going on there, as I was able to access your other links. Anyway, I'm not sure exactly who is confusing chronic exposure with acute exposure. You referenced Dr. Gofman in your earlier link. He said there is "No Safe Dose," and he literally wrote a book by that name. So he says BOTH chronic AND acute are bad. Based on the research I linked earlier, I agree that both CAN be bad, but it depends.....(yes, it's still complicated).

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daniel corcos's avatar

I'm sorry, the link was wrong. Is it better?

https://danielcorcos.substack.com/p/on-the-biological-effects-of-radiation

In fact, I haven't read all of John Gofman, but it seems he gets most of his information from medical procedures, i.e. acute exposure.

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Sobshrink's avatar

Yes, I was able to open this link, thanks. I just read about Gofman for the first time today, because of the first link you posted. From what I read, he started out just researching and discussing radiation from nuclear power plants, and only later did he move into discussing radiation from medical procedures. That's why I was wondering if he was biased when he entered the medical radiology realm, since he was so against nuclear power; perhaps he extrapolated that to the medical field. Also his research was done before the newer, low dose machines. In any case, yes, you're right, the LNT is flawed, as pointed out in the article I posted earlier, and re-posted below. The relationship is not strictly linear, as evidenced by the fact that low doses seem beneficial.

https://www.jpands.org/vol8no2/kauffman.pdf

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