News Archive
John Cardarelli, HPS President, 2021–2023
Last month, Health Physics Society (HPS) President-elect Elizabeth Brackett informed our members that the Board of Directors created a "History of the LNT Task Force" to determine the future of these videos on the HPS website. More people clicked on that article than any other in the newsletter, which suggests to me that this topic is of great interest to our members. The task force is developing a questionnaire to gain a better understanding of where our membership falls on this topic. When that is released, I encourage every member to respond and share your thoughts with us. Efforts to continue with additional interviews have been delayed, partly due to the fact the Board has placed limits on my discretionary budget. This may be the first time in the history of our Society that the Board has taken such an action on a president's discretionary funds. Nonetheless, we are moving forward together and continuing to serve our members in a collaborative way.
Since we released our videos in April, they have been watched by more than 13,000 unique viewers in more than 70 countries and 700 cities across the world. We received nearly 100 emails in support of this work and only a few suggested edits. One commenter, International Radiation Protection Association Past President Roger Coates, provided excellent comments and my responses can be found on our website. Our team has not received any comments that provided original source documentation which would cause a revision to this documentary series. One criticism that keeps being aired is that these videos are biased and represent only one person's view. My response? Dr. Edward Calabrese is the most published person on this topic, and we went to great lengths to ensure every statement was supported by original documentation. His message is controversial and provocative because it challenges 50 years of regulatory policy and public health practices. Because of that, some don't listen to the message and, instead, attack the messenger. Casting ad hominem attacks does not diminish the validity of the message. A healthy scientific debate embraces and demands exchanges that may be challenging but civil.
I believe we are serving our profession and the scientific community by producing these types of historical documentaries. Creating these videos represents a new way to engage and advance this debate to more viewers within and outside our society. The HPS has been grappling with this topic since the LNT model was first proposed and adopted. If you believe Calabrese's version of this history is biased or wrong, I encourage you to read what Past President Dr. Robley Evans wrote in our October 1971 HPS Newsletter in his special commentary "The Linear Nonthreshold Model as Developed for Large-Population Radiation Protection Guides in the Low-Dose Domain." As an HPS member, you can access this free by clicking on this link. You may need to log in to the Members Only side of our website first.
An alternative view can be found in Dr. Daniel Strom's feature article in the October 1995 edition of HPS Newsletter titled "Support for the Linear, No-Threshold Model." Also, watch HPS Past President Dr. Ken Mossman's 2000 interview on low-dose risk and the HPS Position Statement on Risk (especially the 20-minute to 30-minute mark) on our HPS YouTube channel. Finally, please watch Dr. Ludwig Feinendegen's 2006 interview to hear his "Words of Wisdom" for health physicists (starting near the 38-minute mark). He was awarded HPS's highest honor, the Robley D. Evans Commemorative Medal, for his lifetime work on low-dose radiation exposure effects. During my time with Calabrese, I learned that Feinendegen is a strong supporter of Calabrese's publications. In an email1, he referenced one of Calabrese's recent publications (Calabrese and Giordano 2022) stating, "I wish that this paper would be read by all involved in radiation protection. No one else has collected so much data, opinions and exposures of into [sic] individual contacts, then you succeeded to do. The crisp exposure of illegitimate circumstances and even fraud that you brought to the open should be publicized widely. . .." HPS bestowed our highest honor to Feinendegen in 2006 while Calabrese was disinvited by the American Academy of Health Physics during its special session at the 2018 HPS Annual Meeting. The scientific contributions on the topic of low-dose effects between these two scientists are similar. Perhaps this is an example of different communication styles or different times being interpreted in different ways.
Finally, we have the benefit of nearly 50 years to decide if the work and opinions of Drs. Evans, Strom, Mossman, Feinendegen, or Calabrese were accurate and a fair representation of the scientific record. To understand a science, one must know its history. I encourage readers to critically evaluate the references cited here, and others that present various views on LNT, and make your own judgements.
Reference
Calabrese EJ, Giordano J. LNTgate: How LNT benefited from editorial actions. Chem Biol Interact 362, 109979;2022. DOI:10.1016/j.cbi.109979.
1Feinendegen L. Personal Communication: LNT. 8 June 2022.