Talk:Linear no-threshold

Given that 'radiation #can# be bad for you' (allowing for background radiation, relics of the Big Bang, medical uses etc), minimising unnecessary exposure is a Good Thing. (No face-licking of old-style glow in the dark clocks) 212.85.6.26 (talk) 16:41, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Page has been de-Tweenked. Can't say I have the best hold on the research, but from what I've looked into a lot of research around low-dose radiation is really fuzzy, though the anti-LNT research doesn't seem likely to supersede the LNT model in the near future. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:35, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
 * For solar radiation reducing the dose can increase your risk of skin cancer, since you get more sunlight untanned. There's no proof a similar effect is not at play here. --145.94.77.43 (talk) 05:09, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I didn't see what state of disrepair the article was in previously, but can you point me towards some of your research please? The best I've been able to determine is that the LNT is null and void, and always has been. This is especially with the recent advent of research into the methods by which DNA repairs itself from errors which destroys the LNT. The repair mechanism can handle 1 error, but fails with 2 errors, giving a quite plausible mechanism behind why the LNT is simply false. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 01:07, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, you realize how completely "bad" you're being, right? While formally correct, your comment is fearmongering and pseudoscience. I mean, dihydrogen monoxide "can" be bad for you in sufficient doses, and thus "minimising unnecessary exposure is a Good Thing". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_hoax The apparent intent of your remark is to favor the LNT as a "cautious" and "safe" conservative position. This sounds fine at first glance, but it has the effect of greatly injuring any possible rational cost benefit analysis, and further promotes the actually dangerous pseudoscience of LNT. Thousands of people have died, and may die in the future, from the Fukushima accident because of people like you promoting fearmongering and LNT, far more than the amount of people who have actually been hurt from radiation from Fukushima. (Needless) evacuations and power shortages are not risk-free. Hell, your parentheticals are beyond belief. Are you a Poe? You're allowing for background radiation as apparently "not harmful" - or at least not harmful enough to worry about - but you'd probably be on the front lines protesting against man-made exposure that's thousands of times smaller than background levels. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 19:29, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Mammalian enzymes disprove linear model.
In all mammals, radiation exposure triggers the production of enzymes that repair radiation-caused damage too quickly for it to become permanent. It was discovered during biochemical study of mammals in the Chernobyl forbidden zone, when scientists investigated why the mammals showed far lower incidence of deformed infants than linear radiology predicted. The linear model is thus analogous to basing UV-skin cancer link on UV dose alone and totally ignore melanin production. Working in nuclear plants in short periods with long breaks (as the law in most countries tell the workers to do) is far more dangerous than being in there constantly, just as going out in the sun and wait until the tan disappears before you go out in the sun again and so on is more dangerous than being in the sun every day.109.58.205.241 (talk) 15:54, 29 October 2011 (UTC)Martin J Sallberg
 * Source(s) Linkies? Scream!! (talk) 15:55, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

new assertion of evidence in favor by Tweenk
Do you have the citations handy, please, for this evidence that supports LNT? LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 05:52, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

No, really - do you have any? What sources are you using? I'm in the process of trying to find any peer reviewed paper that defends LNT as anything more than speculation. It's hard to do. Thus far, I've found apparently compelling information otherwise, for example in the last half hour: http://www.radpro.com/mossman.pdf http://radiology.rsna.org/content/251/1/13.full So, I ask again, what are your sources? The sources on the main page are dubious or actually in my favor. For example, let's look at two sources on the main page. 1- "Evolution of ICRP Recommendations" is not a study itself nor does it readily cite relevant studies (from my quick glance). 2- "HPS" sums up its position with this wonderful quote: "There is no solid evidence that radiation exposures below 100 mSv (or so) carry an increased risk of cancer. However, the risks observed at high doses can be used to estimate what the risks might be at lower doses.". So, I'll give this a couple days, and if no one objects, I'll remove the pro-LNT bias and rephrase it with the facts: LNT is widely used in regulatory schemes, it is basically unsupported by evidence (though remains largely consistent with the available evidence), and it's correctness is highly dubious given what we know of how the cell works. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 23:43, 22 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree with you; I personally think that LNT is conclusively disproved by available data, that it never had substantial evidence behind it, and that the real response is threshold-type, with radiation hormesis as a less likely possibility. In fact, even the recent ICRP guidelines, historically a stronghold of LNT, give it some lip service but in practical terms reject it, by advising strongly against using collective doses. When I wrote this, I was bending over backwards so that people wouldn't accuse me of trying to justify nuclear power with dubious science.
 * I've recently found some interesting articles that outline how LNT came to be, so I will be updating this article. --Tweenk (talk) 23:01, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Excellent! Sorry about the harsh (but guarded) tone. EnlightenmentLiberal (talk) 23:48, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Contradiction from source 11 of wiki content
“Our data show that at lower doses of ionizing radiation, DNA repair mechanisms work much better than at higher doses,” says Mina Bissell, a world-renowned breast cancer researcher with Berkeley Lab’s Life Sciences Division. “This non-linear DNA damage response casts doubt on the general assumption that any amount of ionizing radiation is harmful and additive.” - source 11

What this page says, erroneously: "A recent research finding indicates that low level radiation damage is repaired more efficiently, which would reduce the effectiveness of low dose radiation relative to LNT.[11] Another study found that mice irradiated with 400 times background radiation over 5 weeks did not show any DNA damage, indicating that low dose rate radiation is less harmful, even if the total dose is the same.[12]"

Excuse me? That isn't at all right. DNA damage repairs more quickly [at low doses] than at high ones, at least according to this researcher who studies breast cancer. Hence, there isn't a linear relationship but a sharp graduation past some unknown threshold. The page somehow construes that researcher's quote to mean low-dose radiation therapy is somehow less effective than the "LNT" theory - which isn't a treatment anyway, so that doesn't make sense - and/or that because low-dose radiation is unsafe when that's not the point of the observation. Low-dose is safer than high-dose and may trigger the body's DNA repair mechanisms (oddly these are only passingly referred to by the article.) LNT dismisses such a belief on the claim that any dose of radiation is potentially cancer causing.
 * The section is titled "Possible contradicting evidence", what did you expect? Hertzy (talk) 16:06, 11 June 2017 (UTC)