Most of the time, science is thought of in the abstract. We or others conduct quantitative observations of the physical world and try to correlate those observations within the framework of existing theory or of some new hypothesis. Most scientists are simply skilled observers who are primarily engaged in making such measurements.

Some people like to cultivate the myth that scientists are great thinkers with large brains and furrowed brows who spend their time deep in complicated thoughts beyond the understanding of most mortals. This, of course, is nonsense, but it does serve to pry a little more tax money away from many taxpayers who are fooled by the myth.

A life in basic science or applied science (engineering) is very rewarding. There are always new things to learn. The ocean of undiscovered truths, large and small, is so extensive that there is no possibility of running out of interesting things to do. Those who have an opportunity to spend their lives in science are fortunate indeed.

Although most people are not professional experimentalists, many of them do some experimentation in the course of their life's work. Moreover, an increasing number of people are conducting their final series of experiments upon their own bodies.

The curve of death from cancer vs. age rises so rapidly in the later years of life (see Figure 2 below) that those of us who do not die earlier of other causes face a veritable wall of cancer probability above the ages of 80 to 90 years. Moreover, the rate of growth of cancer is markedly affected by parameters that are under our individual control. In one experimental system, for example, the rate of growth of cancer in mice was varied over a 20-fold range by changes in diet alone (see Access to Energy 22, No. 5, p 2 (1995)).

It is widely believed that a person who is diagnosed with cancer or some other degenerative disease such as atherosclerosis or neuro-muscular degeneration has little control over his fate - that the best course is to put himself in the hands of the medical system, rely on his health insurance to pay the bills, and hope for the best. This is true in some cases. It should be true in virtually all cases. The twin demons of governmental and medical establishment control of medical research and delivery and a legal establishment that threatens to confiscate the assets of any innovator who can be held colorably liable for a patient's misfortune have, however, greatly diminished progress in therapeutic medicine.

Medicine has managed to make better progress in some (but certainly not all) areas of diagnostic technology, but progress in therapy has been very limited. As a result, when a seriously ill person embarks on a course of treatment, he is often setting out on a course of experimentation rather than a well understood and optimized therapy.

Degenerative diseases frequently disable or kill slowly, so the patient often has plenty of time to deduce that the therapy is not working in his case. Moreover, there are numerous books and sometimes friends and relatives available to tell him stories of others for whom the therapy failed. This leads him to search for alternative approaches.

The search for alternative therapies for serious diseases gives rise to the movement that is called "alternative medicine.'' (The desire for preventive medicine is also a component of this.) Alternative medicine is comprised of those techniques that are not an accepted part of ordinary medical practice. Some of these techniques are sensible and very valuable, and some are useless dead ends. (These can be worse than useless. They can be dangerous to a seriously ill patient who uses up his dwindling time pursuing them when there are other therapies that would help him.) Whether the patient chooses a therapeutic regime from ordinary medicine or alternative medicine, he is more likely to prolong life and diminish suffering if he uses diagnostic medicine in an unusual way.

The techniques of modern medicine for quantitative diagnosis of disease are often very good (this depends upon the particular disease), but they are rarely used often enough. A physician testing the blood of, for example, a leukemia victim, once every two months (unless there is a sudden change in symptoms) would be testing about as often as ordinary practice permits. More testing might cause trouble for the physician. The test is excellent and quite quantitative, but it is applied far too infrequently.

The patient is engaged in a longitudinal self experiment. There are many different things that he can do to alter the course of his disease. Even if he cannot cure it, he can very likely affect the rate of its progress. For this he needs more data. A test every couple of months just tells him about how long he can be expected to live. A test at least weekly gives him much more information. It gives him sufficient data to carefully track the progress of his disease even after averaging out the inevitable experimental noise associated with the tests.

Perhaps the relentless change in his blood values toward death can never be halted, but he may be able to alter the slope of the curve - if he can see it. Even if he is using conventional therapy, what is the effect, for example, if he cuts his protein, fat, and vitamin intake in an effort to partially starve the cancer? Does the slope increase or decrease? What is the slope following each course of chemotherapy? Is this therapy improving or diminishing his chances?

Over the past 30 years, many victims of degenerative diseases have asked me for advice about the course they should follow. If I know a useful alternative course for them, I usually tell them about it without saying that it is better or worse than other possibilities. How am I to know which therapy will be best in their particular case?

Always, however, I advise them to use the best quantitative diagnostic procedure available - and to use it much more frequently than their physician advises even if they must pay for the tests themselves.

A seriously ill patient may be involved in the last series of experiments of his life. Biochemical and environmental individuality coupled with the very limited availability of definitive medical knowledge puts him in the unique position that only he can serve as the source of good enough data to monitor his own condition. A simple graph, created by means of the miracles of modern diagnostic medicine applied, however, far more often than is ordinary medical practice, can give the patient the data he needs to try several therapeutic procedures and objectively evaluate their effect on his particular fate. This self experimentation, the data gathering and the evaluation, should be carefully considered by every seriously ill individual.

Access to Energy has published articles about radiation hormesis for many years. Petr Beckmann even wore a vest filled with low-level radioactive material in order to illustrate this effect and to take advantage of its health benefits. Although there is a large and rapidly grow-research literature demonstrating radiation hormesis under many different conditions, the work by Bernard L. Cohen at the University of Pittsburgh on radon and lung cancer is probably the most spectacular. We first reported this in the Access to Energy article entitled "Vitamin R?'' in AtE 21, No. 4, p 4, December 1993. Cohen (who will be speaking at our annual DDP meeting to be held in San Diego on June 14-15) has continued to refine this work until it has become a giant, irremovable spike driven through the heart of the no-threshold linear hypothesis. Since this hypothesis is the foundation of virtually the entire antinuclear fear industry, Cohen's work is revolutionary. Without the no-threshold linear hypothesis, the enviro radiation bogey from fear of nuclear power plants to concerns about radioactive waste dis- posal becomes baseless propaganda. Moreover, since the antinuclear movement was the first of the great enviro success stories, the collapse of the credibility of this movement can seriously damage the effectiveness of current enviro propaganda in other areas as well.

Cohen's most recent paper, "Lung Cancer Rate vs. Mean Radon Level in U. S. Counties of Various Characteristics," Health Physics 72, No. 1, January 1997, is even more of the same. At this point, the only real question is: Why are we not reading about Cohen's work in lRe Wall Street Journal and the Reader's Digest?

Figure 1, adapted from Cohen's paper, shows the essence of this work. These are graphs (men on the left and women on the right) of lung cancer incidence "m" average home radon levels "I=" in more than 1,600 counties containing 90% of the population of the United States. These counties have been combined into groups having similar radon levels. The lung cancer incidence for each of these groups has been averaged to produce a single data point.

The error bars shown above and below each point give one standard deviation of the variance of the sets of individual counties. This means that there is an approximately 67% chance that the actual mean value is within this mnge. There is about a 95% chance that the mean lies within two standard deviations or twice the range in the error bars on the graph. Errors are larger for the points at each end of the graph because fewer counties are averaged to calculate these values. The point-to-point consistency of the data along the graph makes the chance that the observed effect is a random fluctuation essentially zero.

"Mo" is a correction factor that removes smoking as a systematic variable, and "ro" is a consmt that is applied so that the units of the bottom axis will be pCi per liter of air. The dotted line is a least- squares straight line fitted to the data e dashed line is that of an equation of the form m / mo = A + Br + C2 fitted to the data. The solid straight line that is aimlessly crossing the upper left comer of each fig- ure is predicted by the no-threshold linear hypothesis. This line rises I linearly from zero & one to intersect data at very high radiation doses.

Notice that the incidence of lung cancer falls as the radon level in the homes rises. This is not a small effect. There is a reduction of approximately 30% in the incidence of lung cancer in homes averaging 4 pCi per liter of air vs. homes with ten-fold less radiation. At high enough levels of radon, of course, it would be expected that the lung cancer rate would rise back to the control level and then continue to increase with increasing radon doses. There is some indication in Cohen's data that the plateau from which that rise occurs may be in the 4 to 5 pCi per liter range. Until that range is reached, however, the more radon in the home, the lower the lung cancer rate.

Although Cohen's discovery cannot be a random fluctuation, it is theoretically possible for it to be the result of an uncontrolled systematic variable - some extraneous thing that causes the correlation. Two questions are at issue. First, does the correlation really exist? If so, then most people who live in "radon contaminated" homes have a smaller chance of contracting lung cancer. Second, although correlation cannot prove causality, is the radiation the cause of the lower cancer rate?

Since there is already a sound theoretical and experimental basis for reduction in cancer incidence caused by ionizing radiation in other in- stances (see, for example, "Intrinsic Mutations" in Access to Energy 24, No. 5, p 3, January 1997), if the correlation really exists, it is prob ably a causal one. Rigorously fulfilling his ethical scientific responsi- bility to try his best to prove himselfwrong, Cohen has conducted an exhaustive, three-year search for systematic variables in his data that might account for all or part of the observed correlation. (This sort of search is virtually nonexistent among the "scientists" of the tax financed enviro industry who dominate media coverage in today's at- mosphere of political nonscience.)

He has checked for the effects of total population, population per square kilometer, rate of population growth, percent of population living in urban areas, percent of population in the age range 5 to 17 years, percent of population in the age range over 64 years, average persons per household, birth rate, death rate, physicians per capita, hospital beds per capita, rate of births to teen-age mothers, percent of adults that are college graduates, percent of adults that are high school graduates, dollars per capita spent on education, crime rate, percent of houses that are owner occupied, percent of houses with two or more automobiles, annual income per capita percent of population below poverty level, percent unemployment, average wage (excluding farming), percent of earnings from farming, percent of earnings from manufacturing, per- cent of earnings fkom services, percent of earnings from retail trade, percent of earnings from government, dollars per capita sales of cloth- ing, dollars per capita sales by restaurants, percent of local government spending allocated to health, percent of local government spending al- located to welfare, percent of local government spending allocated to roads, geographical location, and smoking prevalence. He has grouped and calculated his data in more than 100 different ways.

In all of this work, Cohen has been unable to find any factor that changes the basic shape of the curves shown in Figure 1. In his paper cited above, he has published graphs of those variables having the largest effect on the curves,. In all essential characteristics these curves are quite similar to those in figure 1.

The conclusion to be drawn is that, if you live in a home with mdon levels higher than normal (but not ridiculously high, which is rare), you have a lower than normal chance of contracting lung cancer. Moreover, the shape of the curves in Figure 1 demonstrates a classic hor- mesis effect. As the ionizing radiation dose rises, the incidence of cancer decreases until a lower plateau is reached. Although too few American homes have high enough radon levels to demonstrate the effects of radiation above this plateau level, it is to be expected that, at some stih higher radon level, the cancer incidence rises to be equal to that in the low-radon homes. At even greater radiation levels, cancer incidence would be expected to be still higher, but there is insufficient data available to demonstrate this.

The no-threshold linear hypothesis predicts (without experimental verification) that radiation at all levels is harmful to health. "No threshold" is the notion that there is no radiation level threshold below which radiation is not harmful. According to this hypothesis, the harm- ful effects of very high radiation levels can be used to estimate the harmful effects of low level radiation by a simple linear extrapolation through zero - the point of no harmful effects at zero dose. Not only has this hypothesis never been experimentally verified, it has now been experimentally shown to be not true. It turns out that radiation in mod- erate amounts is actually beneficial to health.

Professor Cohen puts it this way: "The very foundation of the scientific method is the requirement that any theory which is not in agreement with experimental observations must be abandoned (or modified) unless a plausible explanation for the discrepancy can be provided or conflicting data which supports the theory are available. Cohen (1995) laid out such a situation for radon exposure as a causal agent for lung cancer. Statistically indisputable evidence for a very large discrepancy between observational data and the linear no-threshold theory of mdia- tion carcinogenesis was presented. In spite of the fact that these results are widely known in the scientific community, there have as yet been no convincing explanations offered by others that would support linear no-threshold in this case. There are no other observational data in the low dose region treated by Cohen (1995) that can be interpreted as confkting with its results. To continue acceptance of the theory in this situation would appear to violate the scientific method." He points out that there are no published experimental observations that are inconsistent with his results and that, where there is overlap with other experiments, the results are entirely consistent with his.

So, radon levels are negatively correlated with lung cancer up to levels of 2.5 pCi per liter and are not positively correlated with lung cancer until radon levels are above 4 pCi per liter. Radon levels must rise substantially above 4 pCi per liter before cancer incidence equals that of low-radon homes. There are about seven lung cancer deaths per 10,000 Americans per year in low-radon homes (less than 0.5 pCi per liter) and about five lung cancer deaths per 10,000 Americans in homes with 2.5 pCi per liter (see Access to Energy 21, No. 4, p 4).

 

Calculating as follows: (7 - 5) (250,000,OOO) / (10,000) = 50,000. Dividing by two (since the cancer rate falls linearly with increase in dose and the distribution of counties is approximately uniform), and rounding conservatively downward, one might estimate that at least 20,000 people are dying of lung cancer each year in the United States who could have been saved by raising the radon concentration of the airintheirhomes. Does this mean that, in part, lung cancer is a radon deficiency disease - or, more correctly, lung cancer is partly an ionizing radiation deficiency disease?

Perhaps, but consider Figure 2, adapted from the publications of Bruce Ames (see Access to Energy 21, No. 8, p 2, April 1994, for refm- ences). With current knowledge, people are engaged primarily in cancer postponement rather than cancer prevention or cancer cure.

Ionizing radiation apparently strengthens the ability to resist cancer, thereby, in the case of radon, mducing the lung cancer death rate. If, however, one is able to avoid an earlier death from all other causes, his chances of contracting cancer rise so rapidly with age that he will probably eventually die of that disease. It is misleading to suggest that ionizing radiation or any other preventive measure currently in use prevents cancer indefinitely. The only known way to completely avoid death from cancer is to arrange to die from some other cause first.

The first curve in Figure 3 represents the current American l&span (see A. B. Robinson and L. R Robinson, Mechanisms of Ageing and Development 59, pp 47-67 (1991)). The second curve represents the improvement possible through prevention of early deaths, while the third illustrates extending the intrinsic lifespan. Ionizing mdiation helps us to turn the first curve into the second. It may have no effect upon intrinsic lifespan. No one now knows.

We now do know, however, that low level radiation is not harmful to us and that, in all cases studied so far, it is actually beneficial to our health. This is a wonderful discovery. It is also very damaging to the machinations of those whose antiradiation propaganda has diminished our access to nuclear energy.

"Lung Cancer Risk From Residential Radon: Meta-analysis of Eight Epidemiologic Studies," J. H. Lubin and J. D. Boice, Jr., Journal of the National Cancer Institute 89, No. 1, pp 49-57, January 1997, is an attempt to negate Cohen's discovery. Lubin and Boice combine the results of eight published experiments in which radon levels were measured in the homes of lung cancer victims and controls. Figure 4, adapted from the Lubin and Boice paper, shows these measurements.

The dotted line labeled "relative risk = 1" corresponds to no effect of radon on lung cancer at all - no increase and no decrease. The dashed line labeled "pooled miner estimate" is calculated using the no-threshold linear hypothesis to extrapolate from the lung cancer rates of miners who received very high radiation doses and suffered an ex- pected correspondingly increased cancer incidence. The error bars are at two standard deviations or 95% reliability.

Cohen's minimum lung cancer plateau at 2.3 pCi per liter corre- sponds to (37)(2.5) = 92.5 or about 93 Bq / m in the units of this graph Lubin and Boice use these plotted points to contend that this data verifies the "pooled miner estimate" and no-threshold linear hypothesis and that it disproves Cohen's experimental work

Look at the error bars! A straight line average of this data is acceptable, since the values are so scattered that any higher order assumption is probably not justified by the data. To use, however, this data to verify the existence of a straight line relationship is obviously ridiculous. Even when pooled together, these eight studies involved about 30-fold fewer homes than the Cohen research.

Moreover, about two-thirds of these values are above the radiation dose range studied by Cohen, so Lubin and Boice have about 100-fold less data than Cohen in the relevant range. This increases their error by about a factor of 10, which is the square root of 100. Assuming the primary observations to be of equivalent quality, Cohen should be able to discern the shape of the real curve with 10-fold greater reliability.

Moreover, in the region below 80 Bq / m3 these average values actually trend below 1.0, which we could cite in support of Cohen. This would be, of course, erroneous sleight-of-hand First, the scatter is too great for this conclusion. Second, if we move the threshold up to 120 Bq / m3, this "trend" disappears. The hormesis discovered by Cohen is, however, well within the error of the Lubin and Boice data.

This "meta-analysis" proves nothing except that the tax-financed de&ens of the National Cancer Institute ante becoming so nervous about Cohen's results that they are wilhng to publish virtually anything that claims to be a refutation. NCI is entirely dependent for funds upon the Clinton Administration. This Administration is filled from top to bottom with 1960's radical agitators who are "anti-nuke" to the core.

• "The Internet: Fun While It Lasted" by James Freeman in The Wall Street Journal, January 22,1997, p A14, reports that the Clintons have "assembled a crack team of civil servants, carefully selected and armed with broad rule-making expertise. Their mission: Regulate the Internet." This "interagency task force" is headed by none other than Ira Magaziner. As Freeman puts it: "If you've been waiting for a signal that it's time to dump technology stocks, your wait may be over."
  
  The Clintons have been keeping Magaziner out of sight ever since he and Hillary's Health Care Task Force and the 1,400 page plan he authored to regulate the health care industry crashed and burned. Federal Judge Royce Lambert suggested that the Justice Department consider prosecuting Magaziner for perjury during that escapade.
  
  
• "Radiation Threatens Mars Delay" in Nature 385, p $2 January 1997, brings word that a manned mission to Mars will need to be delayed another 25 years while bureaucrats study the possible effects of radiation on humans during the trip. This adds decades of wonderful multibillion dollar paper shuffling onto the project. As usual, our government has identified a worthwhile project and is now distorting it into an excuse for vast amounts of peripheral spending.
  
  If they use the no-threshold linear hypothesis, this could be drawn out for generations. If intergalactic cosmic rays are absorbed to a significant extent by the human body, then they can be equally well absorbed by appropri- ately shielding small sections of the space vehicle to serve as protective hide-outs for passengers when needed. We expect that, if current knowledge of the risks and uncertainties were fully explained to poten- tial travelers, there would be no shortage of volunteers for the trip.
  
  
• "The Academic Fad That Gave Us Ebonics" by Tom Loveless in The Wall Street Journal, January 22, 1997, p A14, explains that "Ebonics is solidly in the mainstream of modem educational thought. It shares with constructivism the same relativism, the same reluctance to let students know when they are wrong." I would also add that it is racist to the core. The only blacks who will benefit from ebonics are political agitators. For the students, it is just one more step along the modem liberal path toward the permanent second-class citizenship that usually results from poor education.

• Slouching Towards Gomorrah -Modrern Liberalism and American Decline by Robert H. Bork, publisher Regan Books, 1996. Bork chronicles the mutation of equality of opportunity into equality of out-come and of freedom with responsibility into freedom from responsibility as America is influenced by an elite he terms "modern liberals. "
  
  Books of this sort are often difficult reading with few facts and lots of words and rhetoric. Robert Bork's book is different because he has carefully analyzed this problem and its potential solutions and writes in an objective, clear, and very readable manner.
  

• Targeting Malnutrition -Isotopic Tools for Evaluating Nutrition Worldwide published by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Wagramer Strasse 5, A-1400 Vienna, Austria.
  
  
• "The EPA's Clean Air-ogance" by S. J. Milloy and M. Gough in The Wall Street Journal, January 7,1997, p A18.
  
  
• "The Libertarian Congressman is Back" by John H. Fund in The Wall Street Journal, January 13,1997, p A16 about the return of Ron Paul to Congress. Even one of him is a nightmare for the elite.