The BEIR VII Estimates of Low-Dose Radiation Health Risks Are Based on Faulty Assumptions and Data Analyses: A Call for Reassessment

Abstract

The 2006 National Academy of Sciences Biologic Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) VII report is a well-recognized and frequently cited source on the legitimacy of the linear no-threshold (LNT) model-a model entailing a linear and causal relationship between ionizing radiation and human cancer risk. Linearity means that all radiation causes cancer and explicitly excludes a threshold below which radiogenic cancer risk disappears. However, the BEIR VII committee has erred in the interpretation of its selected literature; specifically, the in vitro data quoted fail to support LNT. Moreover, in vitro data cannot be considered as definitive proof of cancer development in intact organisms. This review is presented to stimulate a critical reevaluation by a BEIR VIII committee to reassess the validity, and use, of LNT and its derived policies.

Mechanistic Insights Into Why Radiation Dose Matters? It Matters Most Because of Adaptive Responses at Low Radiation Doses

“…The BEIR VII report and Duncan et al do not consider the aforementioned 4 factors that serve to challenge the LNT approach. As such, this letter supports the contentions of Siegel et al (2) and encourages future BEIR reports to incorporate the challenges offered by these authors to improve future reports. In addition, the updated RERF report 14 data and low-dose and dose rate data should be incorporated into future BEIR reports to provide the best scientific assessment of the risk of ionizing radiation.…”

“…These are obviously background, spontaneous DNA events, and with large contributions of EDSBs harboring DNA mutations, the fallacy of the quotation (3) is apparent: large, spontaneous, EDSB backgrounds exist in the body due to its metabolism, environments, and other factors; thresholds exist because LDR stimulates adaptive responses to remove IRDSBs and EDSB backgrounds, an enhanced dose response that reduces the body's inventory of potential cancer precursors. (2). In it, we demonstrate point by point and without speculation that the BEIR committee's conclusions are contradicted even by their own selected evidence.…”

There Is No Evidence to Support the Linear No-Threshold Model of Radiation Carcinogenesis

“…that surviving cells after radiation exposure contain DNA mutations that are not ''removed with sufficient reliability to eliminate the low but finite risk of future cancers.'' They refer to these in vitro experiments as ''elegant,'' and although they may be elegant for limited purposes, in vitro data cannot be considered indicative of cancer development in intact organisms (5). In vitro experiments lack both the mitochondrial oxygen-metabolizing processes that produce continual and extensive DNA damage every second of every day and the immune systems that continually remove cells that could potentially initiate cancer development as well as the cells that have begun that process.…”

Radiation Dose Does Matter: Mechanistic Insights into DNA Damage and Repair Support the Linear No-Threshold Model of Low-Dose Radiation Health Risks

“…TheSi egel et al commentary (1) calls for reassessing the risks of low-dose exposure to ionizing radiation. It contends that when the National Academy of Sciences committee prepared its Biologic Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR VII) report (2), they ''erred in the interpretation of their selected literature.''…”