Just watched an interesting program on TV last night.  Are we scaring
ourselves to death.

Danger to life as a fraction of our lives.

Action  Days of life lost

Airtravel       1 day
automobiles     183 days

yet the government spends billions regulating air lines and a fraction of that
regulating cars.

He asked people in the audience if they would approve a new fuel  that cost
no more than oil, but would result in the deaths of 10 peopl per year.  The
audience was emphatically no...until they learned he was speaking of Natural
gas, a highly explosive, odorless, fuel that actually causes over 600 deaths
per year.

Or what about a new toy, that will kill over 800 people per year and render
more hundreds brain dead?  Would you want this in your home?  No?  Better get
rid of your pool then.

WE can regulate out all danger in life.

43 responses total.

If a new fuel cost no more than oil and caused 10 deaths a year, then we
should certainly not have it (assuming you meant 10 additional deaths).  I
mean, 10 deaths a year isn't a lot, but it's something, and no advantages
whatsoever have been ascribed to this "new fuel," so since it has only
disadvantages and no advantages it is clearly no dang good.  Open and shut.

I don't understand the rest of this either.  Action days?

I'm with Jan.  What are action days?

  Ozone action days, at least as I understand them are days when the temp is
over 90. The weather folks on ch 7 say that filling up your ride, or bbq'ing
can damage the ozone layer, and they ask ppl not to do these things for that
day unless you need gas. I think it's a crock because the ppl in eastern
europe with all the steel mills are not thinking about the environment. Maybe
if everyone looked after the planet we would have an ozone layer a little
thicker than it already is.

 Maybe Russ can expand on this.

  Re 0- I think we are scaring ourselves because we (not the present company)
are failing to educate themselves to get along in our society. 
  Example- Last week, there was a story about a kid who threw himself out the
window at school. It got the lead. Back in my days at St John Berchman, I had
THE worst teacher on the planet-Ms. Fillipew and she was a bitch who
constantly terrorized me for being too happy. Despite her, I did not toss
myself out the window, but I got used to her, and am stronger for the
experience. Even if I would have flung my self out the window, I still would
have had to go back the next day. 
  The mother of that kid doesn't know when he'll go back to school. I say he
should go back and get used to her (the teacher) and learn the lesson that
you cannot, no matter how you try, get along with everybody. Someone always
has a problem with you, now don't they?

I doubt that #0 refers to anything even remotely resembling ozone action
days.  I suspect that it refers to # of days of life lost as a result of
the action (riding in airplanes or automobiles).

Oil contains carcinogens, natural gas contains almost none.  Pollution
from the burning is far  cleaner for gas.  I bet that the risk assessment
is very lopsidedly in favor of gas.

All the TV show reviewed in #0 shows is that people are innumerate.

"Instant" deaths from natural gas are probably much more common than
"instant"  deaths from oil (due to what was cited in #0 - explosions).
People do take different views of risks leading to catastrophic versus
leisurely death.  For example, it may be (I don't know, but its possible)
that deaths due to malignancies precipitated by flying (higher radition
exposure at great elevations) exceed in number deaths due to plane
crashes. Certainly the public is more concerned about the latter than the
former. 

I doubt there's any relationship between air miles and cancer.  There
is none between life at higher altitudes and cancer.

I recall reading there was - at least based on dose response calculations.
They would be hard to detect statistically, since the probability is low -
but so is death by accident in commerical flying. They can't be detected
"statistically" very easily either! 

Did you miss the information in item #69?  The linear dose-response
model is known to be wrong for low doses of radiation.

  Many instances of irrational fears can be found in government
safety regulations.  It generally reflects the public's irrational
risk analysis.  Recent anti-terrorism proposals are a good example,
at least based on past damage caused by domestic terrorism.  The
public is afraid of terrorist attacks, even though they're more
likely to die slipping on a patch of ice.
 
  The "action days" in #0, I'm guessing, are the number of days
off the average American's life due to various causes.  The data
isn't sufficiently well defined to draw meaningful conclusions.
 
  Re 8, radiation exposure is notably higher for people who work
in airplanes than for those who work on the ground.  Whether or
not the linear dose response is wrong at low levels of radiation
(I heard that in the 80's, but thought it was a controversial
theory), that's a general principle, and doesn't say anything
about the particular case of airline employees.  I assume you're
not trying to claim that radiation exposure to airline employees
is definitely beneficial.

(DAMN this network *and* Grex!  I have tried FOUR TIMES to enter this
response, and EVERY TIME I have lost the response due to network
failures, and vi on Grex will NOT recover the file!)

Re #9:  We don't know.  However, people living at high altitude
(such as in Denver, CO) have less air shielding them from cosmic
rays than people living at sea level.  They also tend to have
lower, not higher, rates of cancer.  There is also the negative
relationship between low levels of radon and lung cancer.

This pretty much demolishes the linear dose-response model of
radiation exposure to cancer.  The only possible way to salvage
it is to find some cancer-inhibiting influence which just
happens to be distributed just like cosmic ray muons or radon...
which is pretty unlikely.  The conclusion we can reach now is
that there is a threshold below which the risk is zero, *at most*.
(The risk may be negative at some point, yielding a benefit.)

So, given that the linear dose-response model is known to be
wrong at low doses, the question remains:  do air travellers
get sufficient radiation, or radiation so distributed in time,
to push them over the threshold for cancer?  The only answer
we have at this time is "We don't know".  I'm not aware of
any evidence to show that there is any risk, and there have
been enough people flying enough hours in jetliners over the
last 30+ years that any large effect would be apparent already.

I said nothing about a linear dose-response curve. I presume the estimates
were done by intelligent scientists using correct does-response curves.
Do you have a reference to a difference of opinion on the estimates?

You have to correct for a lot of things to compare cancer rates of
Denverites with Ann Arborites, including other pollution sources, life-styles,
diets, etc. In fact, after all that is done - the uncertainties will probably
not make the increased cancer rates from radiation alone statistically
significant. That does not mean it does not occur - just that it is buried
in statistical "noise". I will submit the hypothesis that the increased death
rate overall due to air travel radiation is greater than the overall death
rate due to airline accidents. Realize that the increased death rate due
to air travel is *also* a (nearly?) undetectable blip on the total death
rate from all causes. 

That was a surprisingly interesting and complex topic for a network
tv program.  I saw part of it.  Of course, the presentation was a bit
simple-minded.  The way he presented that natural gas question didn't
provide the information you would need to do a cost-benefit analysis,
but the audience reaction was fascinating, and did illustrate the point
very well.  My thought, as I listened to it, was "ok, 10 deaths; now
what are the advantages of this fuel to compare that with; I need to
know more about its price, characteristics, etc."  And that made me
think right away, "so far, this stuff sounds like natural gas."  So
I spotted the trick.  But judging from the audience muttering, a lot
of people were thinking "Ten innocent people killed!  How horrible!
Life is precious!  This must be prevented... and didn't get beyond
that.

It's a shame that more people can't deal with probabilty logic, or
understand Russ's statement (whether he's right or not) about the
dangers of extrapolating from a linear approximation.  But it's really
shocking that so much popular sentiment, and public policy, is based
on no analytical capacity whatsoever.  You shouldn't need to know any
math, or study economics, to grasp the idea that resources are limited,
and choices must be made.  I blame tv, to some extent, for the limited
analytical ability of the American public.  And the press, too--no matter
what the story, they need "human interest," so they find a weeping mother
to interview.  People get some kind of emotional fix, and aren't even
encouraged to process any information.

By the way, Russ--there's a real elitist general argument in favor of
intrusive government bureaucracies:  People are just too stupid to take
care of themselves.  Sometimes I feel that way.

Re #11:  You said "based on dose-response calculations" in #7.

Yes, but I did not say *linear* dose response calculations. You did.

The linear model is used almost universally, even at low doses where
there is very strong evidence that it is wrong.  If those calculations
were not done using the faulty linear model, please specify what model
they did use.

re 12:  Well said.  It's amazing how lazy many people are, in
relying on the media to spoon-feed them information.  

Consult  http://www.ratical.com/radiation/CNR/RIC/contentsF.html

Why don't you summarize, since you're trying to make a point.

I thought you were interested. I made my point earlier.

  Here's a quick summary: cancer risk from moderate and high dose-levels
are pretty well agreed upon.  Cancer risk at low doses are greatly
disputed.  The book in question argues against the idea of a "safe
dose or dose-rate," based on research on human cancer rates.  About 40
of the book's several hundred pages are on the web, including some
of the more interesting chapters, including "Disproof of Any Safe
Dose or Dose-Rate of Ionizing Radiation with Respect to Induction
of Cancer in Humans."

Thanks, Rob. Somewhere in there is info on, or reference to, dose-response
relations at low doses. I didn't see any allusion to the *linear*
dose-response relation that Russ doesn't like, but the real point is that
there is apparently no *lowest* dose below which malignancies are not
induced.  Therefore the malignancy rate from radiation at high elevations
is greater than at low elevations, even if it can't be found statistically
because of small samples and everything else not being the same. (I got a
second wind... ;->) 

Total malignancy rate is lower at high elevations.  It is quite
significant statistically, I understand.  Try again.

While this suggests that the linear theory is at least incomplete,
there are certainly more variations to being at higher elevations
than increase in radiation.  Maybe thinner air causes a reduction
in malignancy, and that effect is stronger than the increased radiation
effect.

Bingo, if that's all there was to it... but proximity to the magnetic
pole also gives more radiation exposure, and people in northern Canada
don't have higher cancer rates.   (Subatomic particles travel more
easily along magnetic lines of force than across them, so they reach
the surface more easily near the poles.   THey also cause auroras
a lot more. ;-)

I know nothing about any of this, but I can't resist an opportunity
to drift, so I have to say that non-linearity in control variables
(especially erroneously omitted ones) makes more sense to me than
non-linearity in the mechanisms by which radiation damages human
bodies.  If radiation randomly damages cell structures, then the
hypothesis that the more the worse seems logically pretty good.
What alternative hypothesis would predict something else?

Nat, there is the *known* mechanism of hormesis.  Cells aren't passive,
like rocks.  They react to repair and protect themselves, and the
repair mechanisms are activated by damage.  If the repair systems
activated by low-level radiation repair damage above and beyond what
the radiation causes, you'd have a net benefit.  This is in fact observed.
(And not just for radiation.)

The argument concerns DNA repair mechanisms. If the repair rate is "high"
enough, or efficient enough, low rates of DNA damage might have a greater
than proportional repair rate. The issue also involves the mechanisms of
DNA damage - multiple dislocation of a DNA strand due to higher radiation
levels, before single dislocations can be repaired, *might* be worse. All
the detailed analysis of the problem, however, concludes that there is no
low "threshhold" level for DNA damage leading to malignancies.  The main
argument against it is largely the denial of nuclear proponents, based on
their personal economic goals, and wishing to assuage public fears of
radiation.

Re #22: this is a typical pro-nuclear argument. DNA damage by radiation is
greater at higher elevations and latitudes. The question is then, what
other factors lead to observed lower malignancy rates (if true - we have
not been given any citations for data)? Diet, lifestyle, other co-factors,
pollutants, etc etc etc. But none of this affects the argument. 
*Everything else being the same*, people flying in aircraft will have a
higher malignancy rate than those not, due to radiation ,which *may* be a
more significant cause of death than aircraft accidents, but of less
concern to the public because it is leisurely, rather than catastrophic
(that's what this was all about).

  What Rane said.  The effect of radiation is so small compared to many
other factors, that while you can talk about people in Canada vs. the
US, or on a mountain vs. at sea level, they mean absolutely nothing.
You can also find opposite cases, say people on mountains on Norway
living longer than people near sea level in Somolia.  That's far from
being scientific evidence in favor of either side of the issue.

  Re 26, "the repair systems repair damage above and beyond what the 
radiation causes...this is in fact observed."  In humans?  In scientific
studies with control and experimental groups?

I would think that they'd factor out the non-radiation related deaths?

Thanks for the little explanation of hormesis.  I didn't quite grasp
the point before--I guess because I was thinking of that term as being
just a descriptive one.  Maybe that reminded me of homeopathic medicine--
I know nothing about that, either, but had the impression that its
proponents have no idea how it works, if it does.  Well, that's an
interesting question of molecular biology, but I still feel, and agree
with everyone, that observed health differences between populations in
different parts of the world could reflect all kinds of things.  People
who live at high altitudes wear more clothes!

At any rate, it does seem very clear that people are more tolerant of
low levels of risk on a constant basis, than high ones infrequently, even
if the former accumulates to a greater total.  Smoking.

        FWSs should link this to the science and environment confs.

nsiddall summed it up quite nicely. Now, what else should be be scared of?

Summer Agora 118 <---> Science 10

I saw that show, you are meandering far afield with all this dose-response
stuff. The program was about over responding to threats of all kinds. For
example crime is going down and yet if you believe the politicians we are
surrounded by such horror. The issue is talk, talk that is able to 
portray our world without the need to polarize small issues into reasons
to spend billions on some pet fix.

 .. adn this item (drift allowed) is about some bigmouth scaring us
into submission with dire adn pompous babblings without reference.
  
'scaring us to death' is the favorite tactic of Big Brother who is
out earthly saviour ...  stalin as christ.  get self-educated.

Re #27:
>Re #22: this is a typical pro-nuclear argument.

This is very interesting.  In Agora item #69, you showed no sign
of having ever heard of radiation hormesis or the very interesting
relationship between indoor radon and lung cancer across the USA.
Now, barely 3 items later in the progression in Agora, you're
dismissing the observations as "a typical pro-nuclear argument".

First, how would you know if it was typical or not?  Second, what
is the problem with bringing in facts which cast doubt on the
conventional wisdom, or even prove it wrong?  If you will only
accept that which is Politically Correct, you're playing in the
realm of dogma, not reason or science.  At least be honest about it.

>The main argument against it is largely the denial of nuclear proponents,
>based on their personal economic goals, and wishing to assuage public
>fears of radiation.

In other words, it's A Great Conspiracy By The Evil Pro-Nukes Who
Want To Send Humanity To A Glowing Grave For Their Profits.  Gee,
do they beat their spouses and take dalliances with sheep too?

I hate to disappoint you, but I don't have *any* financial interest
in any nuclear facility, A&E firm or intellectual property such as
patents for same.  This blows your conspiracy theory out of the water.
I do, on the other hand, have some other interests:

-       I'm interested in seeing less scarring of the landscape from
        strip mines, mine tailings, and coal ash dumps.

-       I'm interested in seeing less nitrogen oxide, sulfur
        dioxide and ash particles from fossil fuels in the air I breathe.

-       I'm interested in preventing a sudden change in global
        climate which is likely and perhaps already beginning as a
        result of burning fossil fuels.

-       At the same time, I deny the legitimacy of the idea that it
        is wrong to live comfortably and well; I'm interested in
        preserving and extending the standard of living we've come to
        enjoy through the use of energy in its various forms.

Commercial nuclear power in the USA is safer than even wind power
(wind-turbine workers have a pretty dangerous job).  Chernobyl
represents the worst possible combination of bad design, lack of
containment and criminal operator misconduct, yet burst dams have
already killed more than are likely to die from it.  And, except
for a tiny amount of spent fuel which occupies perhaps one or two
semi-truck loads a *year* per plant, it consumes nothing and emits
nothing but some traces of krypton and tritium, and heat.  It doesn't
even take much space, disturbing the landscape hardly at all.

>All the detailed analysis of the problem, however, concludes that there is
>no low "threshhold" level for DNA damage leading to malignancies.

And also re #28:
>  Re 26, "the repair systems repair damage above and beyond what the 
>radiation causes...this is in fact observed."  In humans?  In scientific
>studies with control and experimental groups?

You can't do controlled experiments with enough people to prove
what you're asking.  However, if that's your standard of proof,
you can't prove that cigarettes cause cancer either!  I'll give
you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you'll accept the
results of epidemiological studies which compare large populations
exposed to different conditions.  Here's the data from Agora #69,
arranged as a table this time:

        State group     Radon reading           Lung cancer deaths
        CO, ND, IA      3.9/3.5/3.3 pCi/l       41 per 100,000 per yr
        DE, LA, CA      .75/.96/.97 pCi/l       66 per 100,000 per yr

Note this apparent contradiction:  a three-fold increase in radon
exposure in home living areas is correlated with a 40% LOWER rate
of lung cancer death.  Bernard Cohen was able to control for the
rate of cigarette smoking in some areas (particularly Oregon, which
collects tax data by county) and the correlation still holds up:  at
low levels, indoor radon is associated with less, not more, lung cancer.
The same is apparently true for cosmic-ray radiation.

Now, we don't know exactly how cancer is caused and prevented in large
organisms, to explain these results.  It could be that DNA repair is
promoted more than damage, or that radiation causes cancerous cells to
differentiate or undergo apoptosis preferentially, or by activating the
immune system, or through some as-yet-unknown mechanism.  What you
can NOT deny at this point is that the naive model, stated as ``there is
no low "threshhold" level for DNA damage leading to malignancies'' is
not merely wrong.  It is BACKWARDS.  Counter-intuitive (and politically
incorrect), but apparently it is the only thing consistent with the data!

Now, I'm out about to advocate that we made the environment more
radioactive for its own sake, given our level of ignorance.  However,
given that the risk of very small amounts of radiation above the
background is negligible and possibly negative, we ought not to be
paranoid about the words "nuclear" and "radiation".

Speaking of nuclear paranoia:  People were afraid to take Nuclear Magnetic
Resonance scans; seems that anything "nuclear" was "bad".  So the device
and procedure was re-named Magnetic Resonance Imaging.. "spin doctoring",
if you will.

Russ, you know better than to equate correlation with causation.

Of course.  That's only one of the possibilities.  However, a model
which gets the observed correlation backwards is certain to have
its model of causation wrong.

"Incomplete" seems a better word than "wrong."  The number of possible 
explanations that do not involve revising the linear model is quite high.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss