This note explores whether the lowest dose-rate mortality data from the beagle tissue archive might be consistent with the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) Model and might give evidence in favour of that model. I suggest that the answer may be ‘yes’; further statistical analysis will be required to establish how strongly the data favour LNT over alternative non-linear models. 1 The mortality data A pa...

Low doses in the mGy range cause a dual effect on cellular DNA. One is a relatively low probability of DNA damage per energy deposition event and increases in proportion to the dose. At background exposures this damage to DNA is orders of magnitude lower than that from endogenous sources, such as reactive oxygen species. The other effect at comparable doses is adaptive protection against DNA da...

Radiation protection policy in the United States and in most of the world is based on the assumption that the risk of a radiation induced fatal cancer is linearly proportional to the dose. This is known as the linear, no-threshold (LNT) model of radiation risk. There are no human data to support this assumption for a short-term dose below 0.2 Gy ̄the equivalent of about two centuries of exposure...

There is a vigorous debate about whether or not there may be a "threshold" for radiation-induced adverse health effects. A linear-no threshold (LNT) model allows radiation protection practitioners to manage putative risk consistently, because different types of exposure, exposures at different times, and exposures to different organs may be summed. If we are to argue to regulators and the publi...

On June 23, 2015, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a formal notice in the Federal Register that it would consider whether "it should amend its 'Standards for Protection Against Radiation' regulations from the linear non-threshold (LNT) model of radiation protection to the hormesis model." The present commentary supports this recommendation based on the (1) flawed and deceptive ...

The Linear No Threshold (LNT) hypothesis states that ionizing radiation risk is directly proportional to dose, without a threshold. This hypothesis, along with a number of additional derived or auxiliary concepts such as radiation and tissue type weighting factors, and dose rate reduction factors, are used to calculate radiation risk estimates for humans, and are therefore fundamental for radia...

The Earth was highly radioactive four billion years ago when life emerged. Even today, all humans are bombarded by 20,000 radiation strikes each second. Although high doses hazardous, organisms have evolved not only to tolerate lower-dose but also benefit it (hormesis). Hormesis is prevailing in species various respects. An example that hibakusha (Japanese A-bomb survivors) longer lifespans and...

The possible cancer risks caused by ionizing radiation doses of ~1 mSv or less are too small to be estimated directly from epidemiological data. The linear no-threshold (LNT) approach to estimating such risks involves using epidemiological data at higher (but still low) doses to establish an "anchor point", and then extrapolating the excess cancer risk linearly down from this point to the low d...

The origins of understanding the effects of radiation began with ignorance, which led to what we today would classify as huge doses of radiation. These proved to have certain and dire consequences. We can say that in the regime of very large doses, the results of increasing the dose are increasing consequences. That is, for large doses, we can say with assurance that Consequences ∝ Dose. The do...