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Division of Biology and Medicine This is i n response t o your request for a written comment on the University of Pittsburgh study of the effects of chronic low level occupat ional exposure to radiation. I must confine ny remarks to the scientific aspects of the study, but am well aware that AEC ' s decision as t o how best to proceed will be conditioned by other consider at ions. *.---- - It seems t o me clear, and Drs. Mancuso st. appear to agree, -4 that one cannot expect to obtain positive answers as to radiation effects in finite time, because of the very low doses involved. The proponents say, therefore,that the product will be negative information, typified bv such statements as I' The leukemogenic effect is less than X." The trouble is that they give no estimate of how tight an upper bound they will .be able to provide. For reasons that are unexplained, but perhaps not unguessable by a suspicious reviewer, they resist making power calculations, or estimating what kind of results they will get,_: I -should' ttiink-tfiat-,-a< the least,they should have approached the Fillowing question: Suppose the ; leukemogenic effect of radiation is really two cases per million per year per rad,linearly on dose, with what probability will we be able to conclude+ atthe end of 25, 35, 50 years of observation that the effect is less than i 5,or 10, o r 20 o r whatever. I believe that the answer to this question would be very discouraging! I believe i with others at the meeting, that if they are t o proceed, they should be strongly urged t o move ahead with the actual follow-up of persons for whom they have already acquired the baseline data,rather than keep on expanding the series.Dr. Mancuso seemed t o be of the opinion that the methodology being developed would be of great value,quite apart from answers to specific questions about radiation.If this is so, it would be better to move ahead with the development of the whole methodology from start to finish,rather than t o continue expanding a baseline which will never be large enough t o be useful anyway.
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I could go on t o make remarks about background radiation, medical exposures, etc., neither of which are small i n comparison with their average doses, but this would be using a sledge hammer to kill a fly. Since g ely yours,