Talk:The Low Level Radiation Campaign

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[edit] Response on article page

The following comment was placed on the article page

The Low Level Radiation Campaign is aware of this entry. It says more about the prejudices of its author and the problems associated with letting an encyclopaedia grow by a process of Darwinian evolution than it does about us. (Not that we believe any other sort of encyclopaedia can necessarily be trusted either. "What is truth?", asked Pilate. Would Pilate have accepted as truth the opinion of the BNFL employee cited it this diatribe? Can anyone take a BNFL employee for a "mainstream scientist"?) Obviously this is written by a proponent of hormesis (look at LLRC's jargon buster for a definition - www.llrc.org/jargonbuster.htm). It is highly tendentious, misrepresenting the scientific views LLRC advocates and the radiobiological establishment's responses to them. It is also badly out of date (as at February 2007) and contains many factual errors, half-truths and biased accounts of the many attacks the nuclear establishment and its myrmidons have launched at us over the years. However, we don't propose to deconstruct it - there are too many other things to do, particularly since one has to learn yet another set of protocols to edit Wikipedia entries.

I would suggest that if a person does not like an article that they should discuss the article or become involved in the editing process rather than posting a paragraph such as the above text.Cadmium


On 21st February 2007 on the main page about the Low Level Radiation Campaign I posted the entry which "Cadmium" refers to. It was immediately removed to the discussion page — an action which increases my mistrust of the Wikipedia approach. Cadmium says that, instead of making our views visible in that way, we should become involved in the editing process. That may seem reasonable but (as I have written to him) it has the substantial fault that other sites use Wikipedia as a source. These external sites (e.g. answers.com and reference.com) don't show the discussion page, so dissenting comments are not visible to people who come into the main entry by that route.
The basic problem is that the initiative was seized at the outset by a contributor with a biased position. It would take a lot of work to pull the discussion back into line with the reality of what LLRC does. The originating contributor would remain in a commanding position, not least because he seems to be au fait with Wikipedia's opaque formatting protocols and voluminous editing guidelines, neither of which I have any intention of getting my head around. When the contributor purports to be describing living people this is a denial of natural justice.
Cadmium did at least have the courtesy to email LLRC after I posted the comment. I said in my reply that Wikipedia seems to be an attempt to create a free encyclopaedia without the problem inherent in conventional encyclopaedias; that "experts" bring their baggage with them and cement outdated views and inadequate information for the lifetime of that edition. I suggested that, if this agnostic model were indeed what's intended, someone who wanted to write about LLRC should get in touch and say "Let's agree something accurate and fairly complete". I pointed out that if, instead, an author writes a lot of biased, selective and frankly wrong material and posts it on the site without even telling us, it looks like he has an agenda. This pushes Wikipedia straight back into the conventional encyclopaedias' pitfall. Since February Cadmium and Chris Busby have corresponded and the original article has changed very considerably. It is now less tendentious, though it still contains simple factual errors which could have been avoided if LLRC had been shown a draft before it was published. I don't know if Busby can be bothered to keep up the debate; I'm not sure I can be but, anyway, Cadmium hasn't replied to me. I'll email him the text of this.
Richard Bramhall, Company Secretary, Low Level Radiation Campaign.
18th March 2007

Dear Richard, I would be interested to know what you think a page on the LLRC should contain, do bear in mind that in a world where you are free to express your point of view others are free to express their thoughts even if their thoughts disagree with yours (or even are distasteful to you). For instance the BNFL scientist (David Cartwright) quoted in the article is entitled to express his point of view, the editors here are entitled to report/quote what he has said and I am sure that the readers are entitled to read what he said and consider his thoughts on the matter before making up their own minds.
I found the comparison to the events of holy week rather distasteful as Pilate has nothing to do with BNFL, the LLRC, or events after about 30 AD. I think that a discussion of him should be best left to those who know understand him better. While I am not a great fan of Godwin's Law, I do think that a person who suddenly decides to make comparisons to some very unpopular and irrelevent person from history does weaken their own case. Godwin wrote his law becuase he thought "that overuse of the Nazi/Hitler comparison should be avoided, as it robs the valid comparisons of their impact."
If you look at my editing record then you will see should I have edited and added a large amount of information (oftein writing from a neutral point of view) on topics such as the nuclear fuel, Goiânia accident and Radioactive scrap metal. So do not worry, I have not singled out the LLRC for special treatment and I do not have some hidden agenda. I look forward to hearing from you.Cadmium



Cadmium asks what I think a page on the LLRC should contain. At the top of any encyclopaedia entry on any organisation there should be a factual outline of what the organisation is, its history, its aims, its activities, achievements and failures. This should be as objective as possible. At present there's little if anything to fill these categories of knowledge for LLRC. I'll provide some material.
Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. This defines it as a medium for knowledge rather than opinion. It should contain facts. Any discussion of relevant evidence, opinions and theories should be balanced and objective so that the reader is left with a true impression of the state of the issues. At present most of the discussion is not balanced and objective and the overall impression is extremely biased.
So there are two broad categories in which the LLRC entry is deficient. As I have already said, the ideal for writing an entry about identifiable people and organisations is to commence by approaching those people and organisations. But we aren't in that position — we're in the position of the "unauthorised biography". Starting from where we are now will require a piecemeal approach to editing the existing content. I'll probably start at the top and work down as and when time allows.
Cadmium says "David Cartwright quoted in the article is entitled to express his point of view, the editors here are entitled to report/quote what he has said and I am sure that the readers are entitled to read what he said and consider his thoughts on the matter before making up their own minds." Who could disagree with that? The point is that the entry has David Cartwright in a category entitled "mainstream scientists". This is just wrong. What evidence is there for David Cartwright being a scientist in any relevant sense? He works (or worked) in BNFL's press office as a public relations man. Cadmium quotes him as claiming that "Dr Busby runs his own anti-nuclear company and makes a living out of producing these anti-nuclear reports." and goes on to warn Wikipedia readers that it's "important to note that it is possible that Chris Busby (and possibly the others who run the LLRC) may have a vested interest in the field." How biased can you get? What about BNFL's vested interest? Cadmium seems to suggest that it's acceptable for a BNFL press officer to receive a salary but somehow unacceptable for people to be paid for researching the health effects of radioactive pollution and publishing their findings. The main entry doesn't address any of the evidence, except to say, with just one citation, that other scientists have failed to reproduce them. We'll come round to the facts of that, in which I'll show how those other scientists have had to admit elementary mistakes. This is in the literature, so maybe the research for Wikipedia was inadequate. In fact, as far as making a living is concerned, nobody at LLRC is paid. We would all be much better off doing something else, but we contine our work in the interests of public health and the people who will die unnecessarily early and painful deaths if we stop. Busby is barred by law from being paid for his work as a Director of LLRC. He scrapes by on working as an expert witness (in court cases which he tends to win) and as a consultant for Green Audit. (www.greenaudit.org).
Cadmium "found the comparison to the events of holy week rather distasteful as Pilate has nothing to do with BNFL, the LLRC, etc. etc.". I stand by my quote —"What is truth?". Pontius Pilate, as John's Gospel (Ch 18 vss 33-38) shows, was copping out. This is a seminal text for copping out. Pilate was a politician doing what politicians often do when in a corner — using the most superficial line of (non)reasoning to avoid the real issue, and not waiting for an answer. I invoked this image to illustrate that if an encyclopaedia aims to describe truth, its contributors must be vigilant even for their own unconscious biases.
As for Godwin's law and any presumption against citing Nazis, maybe readers would be interested to know that we recently used a quote from Mein Kampf as an epigraph in responding to an ICRP consultation. The great mass of the people are more apt to believe a great lie than a small one. The great lie in question is ICRP's refusal to address any work that challenges their orthodoxy. This is an utter denial of scientific method. The latest set of ICRP Recommendations contains the word Chernobyl just once, and that is in the context of denying that they can learn anything from its consequences. They are thus systematically depriving the human race of the best chance we have ever had to study the health effects of radioactive pollution. Those scientists who disagree with ICRP's approach estimate that the final death toll from cancers resulting from Chernobyl will be 6 million, so we are apt to give in to temptation and describe the long term impact of Chernobyl as a holocaust. If that too is thought distasteful I shall defend it.
Richard Bramhall. 23rd March 2007
Immediately after I posted the above, changes were made to the main LLRC entry without consultation. On seeing them I looked at various WP guidelines; being a newcomer I needed to do that. I find that my immediate impressions about balance and point of view, as I expressed them in earlier posts on this discussion page, are in line with Wikipedia's. So I find it very questionable that the bias on the main page is now even worse. If we are, as I thought, in a dialogue about style and content, surely the decent way to proceed would be by agreeing on content rather than making unilateral changes. I thought this was the Wikipedia way of doing things. Am I mistaken?
In a private email from one WP editor this morning LLRC has been accused of "mud throwing". The same person has obviously trawled the LLRC web site for examples and has added three of them to the top of the "LLRC" entry. This action highlights a mistaken view which affects the writing of almost everything in the entry. LLRC is not a learned scientific society; it is a campaign about radiation biology and radioepidemiology. In these fields we campaign for good science and against bad science. This distinction has always been at the core of our mission. We also cross over into doing some of the science; there's no reason why we shouldn't. In the science we use scientific methods. In the campaign we use campaigning methods. These include non-violent direct action, lobbying, letter writing, responding to consultations, participating in stakeholder dialogues, speaking at meetings and publishing Radioactive Times. As campaigners and popularisers of arcane scientific topics we use various modes of communication, as appropriate to our various audiences. Our style includes polemic, satire, lampoons, cartoons, anecdotes and jokes. Scientists may see this as abuse, as at least one WP editor does; we see it as fair comment and as a necessity in a world where ever-increasing information competes for ever-diminishing attention.
The LLRC entry as it stands today includes a lot of material that, on my reading of WP's guidelines, ought not to be there. I think I would be justified in asking for it all to be wiped and a fresh start made. I haven't asked for that but if the content is changed further before I have had time to propose detailed additions and edits I shall do so. So far I have had time only to outline the high level problems with the entry, as described in my previous posts on this page.
How many editors will at this stage be interested in this topic? Could they, perhaps identify themselves, at least by their aliases? While I'm on the topic, why do people use aliases?
Richard Bramhall 12.57 GMT 24 03 07.
Changes proposed by Richard Bramhall.
I am editing blocks of text from the main entry as I found it on 24th March 2007. New material is flagged as BEGIN INSERT and END INSERT. Any explanatory notes are (in round brackets). I have struck through text proposed for excisionwith a note to say why, again (in round brackets). Overview
The Low Level Radiation Campaign is a organisation which campaigns on the subject of ionising radiation and health. BEGIN INSERT LLRC's central concern is that the health effects of radioactive contamination of the environment have been very considerably underestimated by official agencies. END INSERT Much of the LLRC's work is related to the induction of cancer by radioisotopes released by the nuclear industry.
The organisation's web site [8] contains a variety of articles on the subject. many authored by Chris Busby(Why: the original editor has little information on who authored what articles, and authorship of LLRC website content is irrelevant) and at least one link to a shock site containing graphic images of deformed infants which claims to show the effect of uranium upon humans(Why: the shock site referred to belongs further down the entry, if anywhere, and in fact the link to it is repeated later).
The LLRC was started in 1993 as a campaign under the aegis of the Green Party and in 1996 it became independent (this was made possible by a grant from the Goldsmith Foundation). The LLRC claims to be the acknowledged gobal site of expertise on the health effects of nuclear radiation (Why: it's too high up the entry. At this stage we should attend to facts, rather than LLRC's view of itself.) one thing which sets it apart from other nuclear / radiological organisations is the fact that its web site contains a large amount of abusive material (these quotes are taken from the jargon buster of the LLRC) such as Committee Examining Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters. An oppositional committee set up by the UK Environment Minister in 2001. Notable for caving into legalistic threats from Departmental lawyers right at the end of its two-and-a-half year deliberations. and The LLRC also describes the ICRP as the Incestuous Cabal for Radioactive Pollution and The LLRC comments that the idea of Controllable Dose is "(the) ICRP's idea for allowing the nukes to pollute anybody and everybody with radioactivity up to an arbitrary threshold ". (Why: This is a matter of style. The three extracts given are not abusive in the sense used by WP — i.e. not inaccurate or wrongful — and in any case external sites are not bound by WP's standards. Campaigns cannot be criticised for methods which include satire, lampoons, cartoons, anecdotes and jokes though some of the subjects may complain. If there are any complaints a WP page would be entitled to cite them but such material does not belong in an Overview.) Richard Bramhall 11.55 BST 25 March 2007


Central thesis of the LLRC
BEGIN INSERT (Why: the article as it stands attacks the central thesis without ever saying what it is; the examples given are not representative. None of the material in the original is relevant to a central thesis. ) LLRC holds that radiation protection standards are fundamentally flawed on two main grounds. One is that they are based on radiation dose as an average energy transfer into large volumes of undifferentiated body tissue from external radiation sources and from the radioactive decay of unstable elements within the body. LLRC cites a number of authorities who have criticised this on conceptual grounds (see links below). The second flaw is that estimates of health hazard are based primarily on the so-called Life-Span Studies (LSS) of the health of people who survived exposure to acute external irradiation from the A-bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. LLRC points out that the LSS suffer from methodological flaws including selective recruitment of the study group, as the studies didn't begin until five years after the bombings. More seriously, according to LLRC, the control group used to define the baseline of expected disease rates in an unexposed population was drawn from the populations of the bombed cities, so that both the study group and control group were equally contaminated by activation products and fission products. For this reason the LSS are held to be silent on the effects of fallout and informative only on the effects of acute instantaneous external irradiation by gamma-rays, X-rays and neutrons from the explosion of the bombs. LLRC claims support for this view from the official French radiation risk agency IRSN (Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire) (link) and the European Committee on Radiation Risk (link).
LLRC holds that on biological and radiological grounds internal contamination of body tissue by some types of radioactivity is inherently more dangerous than predicted on the basis of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki studies. According to the LLRC the reason for the discrepancy is that external irradiation is uniformly distributed on a macroscopic level, with all cells receiving the same amount of ionising energy, while many forms of radioactivity when inside the body deliver their energy exclusively to microscopic volumes of cells; some types of radioactive decay are heterogeneous even on the far smaller molecular level. LLRC's favourite analogy for this heterogeneity of energy distribution is that external irradiation is like a person sitting by a fire and warming himself. If the person were to reach into the fire to take a burning coal and eat it the local tissue effects would probably be fatal, even if a similar or smaller amount of energy had thereby been absorbed by the person's body. On such logic LLRC holds that radiation dose (link / citation? to be obtained) is virtually meaningless in some circumstances. They cite authorities including ICRP, CERRIE IRSN and the ICRP (all in full with links to be added). Since official radiation risk agencies universally quantify risk in terms of average dose, LLRC states that there are many types of exposure for which official reassurances are highly questionable and that it is not tenable to assert that disease phenomena like the Seascale cluster of childhood leukaemia could not be caused by radiation on the grounds of low doses. LLRC points to infant leukaemia after the Chernobyl accident as unequivocal evidence of a large error in ICRP risk factors (citations to be added). The Campaign is severely critical of the ICRP for failing to cite or discuss any epidemiological findings or radiobiological developments that challenge their assumptions. END INSERT


The views which are held and expressed by LLRC are very different to those held/expressed by the majority of scientists working within the field . Due to some of the methods and claims made by the LLRC it is possible that some of their work on could be regarded as an extream point of view (Why: redrafted as follows…)
some of whom regard them variously as extreme or scaremongers. which is different to other workers within the field (Why: tautology) , some might even consider the work to be possible pseudoscience. (Why: No citation. I am not aware that anyone other than Cadmium, writing within WP's LLRC entry, has used this concept of pseudoscience to describe LLRC's work. Since there is a substantial discussion of the topic further down the page I shall return to it there) For instance they treat the very real hazard of radon differently to the bulk of radiation biologists/health physicsts, the LLRC do express the view that corona discharge (present sometimes on powerlines) modifes the transport properties of solid particles containing either radon daughters, radioisotopes formed by the action of cosmic rays on the air or artifical radioisotopes.[10] This change in transport behaviour according to the LLRC is likely to increase the dose suffered by a human near the powerline. (Why: the question of what hazards may or may not be very real, and why there is scientific disagreement about the degree of hazard is the LLRC's central topic; editorial opinion on what constitutes a very real hazard therefore obscures and prejudices the WP treatment. LLRC has reported research findings on disease and power lines and on possible mechanisms for power lines to enhance risk. These are in the peer reviewed literature. This topic would be a legitimate part of the entry, but not in the context of the Central thesis of the LLRC .) One item on the web site of The Low Level Radiation Campaign which is very useful is a method based on plastic sheet for the detection of alpha emitters.[11] This method uses a plastic sheet which is damaged by the action of alpha particles, after etching with sodium hydroxide (a strong base) the plastic is examined by optical microscopy. This method is one which is widly used for the measurement of radon gas and other alpha emitters.(Why: This would be a legitimate part of the entry, but not in the context of the Central thesis of the LLRC. The issue of how useful this technique might be needs to be established by citing other agencies, not by linking to the LLRC's own website.)
Richard Bramhall 13.20BST 25th March 2007

I am in communication with "Cadmium" (the original author of most of the material). He has seen fit to make very minor amendments on the basis of some of the above but they make so little difference to the overall impression of LLRC given by the entry that they are not acceptable. I have proposed a way of working but Cadmium has not responded to it.
LLRC's position is that the entry as it stands is too rambling and poorly structured to be addressed in the piecemeal way Cadmium seems to want to work. It misrepresents LLRC by being seriously incomplete and by concentrating on aspects which Cadmium has brought in, for example illustrations of internal and external irradiation which might be suitable for a primary school project but which aren't relevant to the scientific basis of LLRC's case. It brings in "possible pseudoscience"; Cadmium has offered no citation for this (in other words it's his own speculation, which he elaborates at length). In the context of Chris Busby's CV there is a link to a 3-headed frog, though Busby has no connection with the frog. This section of the entry does NOT link to Busby's real CV, though it does link to the Wikipedia entry for 1987. (Did anyone need to know that?)
There is far too little fact about LLRC's views, evidence and activities. Here is a list trawled from Radioactive Times, which is online.

  • mission statement from the top of the LLRC site;
  • Epidemiology (a very large and influential part of our work which the entry ignores);
  • the establishment of CERRIE (believed to be the only scientific advisory committee set up at the behest of a Non-Government Organisation);
  • analysis of the problems of policy makers being scientifically illiterate and a proposed remedy in Oppositional Committees;
  • publication of the CERRIE Minority Report;
  • analysis of flaws in the theoretical basis of current radiation risk estimates;
  • involvement with the European Committee on Radiation Risk;
  • the "EURATOM campaign" (in which we seriously affected transposition of a European directive, including a 30,000 signature petition);
  • our journal Radioactive Times;
  • our long and influential involvement with stakeholder dialogues with industry, regulators, and government;
  • consultations with government on regulatory practice and standards including drafting Exemption Orders and policy;
  • an international Symposium in the House of Commons in 1996 (10th Chernobyl anniversary) and other conferences we have organised and participated in, including a STOA workshop in the European Parliament;
  • research and publications;
  • campaigns which have blocked incineration of contaminated materials and the diversion of radioactive water into domestic supplies;
  • Uranium weapons research;
  • Uranium toxicity mechanism;
  • representations on biased media reporting;
  • the Irish Sea — its plutonium content and associated health studies (this is an area which the present entry seriously under-reports and misrepresents, for example by concentrating so heavily on the Disneyland anecdote and ignoring major TV documentaries based on our work);
  • interpretation of other people's epidemiological studies, e.g. nuclear industry workers, nuclear test veterans, and the Nordic leukaemia study;
  • access to and analysis of official cancer data;
  • the increase in infant leukaemia after Chernobyl which unequivocally falsifies ICRP's model.


This isn't a complete list; I have proposed to work on this project bit by bit but, because it will take a lot of time, I am not going to begin until Cadmium has agreed a way of working.
Richard Bramhall. 8th April 2007

[edit] Changes

Dear Richard,

I think that you may want to add the following template to the top of the page as the LLRC is interested in pollution. The template is a index of other pages which deal with pollution.

Pollution
v • d • e
Air pollution
Acid rain • Air Quality Index • Atmospheric dispersion modeling • Chlorofluorocarbon • Global dimming • Global warming • Haze • Indoor air quality • Ozone depletion • Particulate • Smog
Water pollution
Eutrophication • Hypoxia • Marine pollution • Ocean acidification • Oil spill • Ship pollution • Surface runoff • Thermal pollution • Wastewater • Waterborne diseases • Water quality • Water stagnation
Soil contamination
Bioremediation • Herbicide • Pesticide • Soil Guideline Values (SGVs)
Radioactive contamination
Actinides in the environment • Environmental radioactivity • Fission product • Nuclear fallout • Plutonium in the environment • Radiation poisoning • Radium in the environment • Uranium in the environment
Other types of pollution
Invasive species • Light pollution • Noise pollution • Radio spectrum pollution • Visual pollution
Inter-government treaties
Montreal Protocol • Nitrogen Oxide Protocol • Kyoto Protocol • CLRTAP
Major organizations
DEFRA • EPA • Global Atmosphere Watch • Greenpeace • National Ambient Air Quality Standards
Related topics
Environmental Science • Natural environment

Also you might want to consider the use of the next template, which is on the subject of environmental science

v • d • e
Environmental science

Cadmium
Dear Cadmium,
I have a problem with your suggestion about the template or header; linking to all these other pages implies some level of endorsement. I haven't time to read through them all. I think this may be one situation where more information does not help. This isn't an outright rejection. Maybe we coudl return to it when I have more time. Richard Bramhall 14:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Frankly it doesn't matter if you endorse those articles or not because in theory this article is completely independent of your organization. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 20:02, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Policies to consiter...

Hello... I noticed it's very likely a number of the editors of this article are unaware of the Standards of wikipedia... I'll outline the most related here.

“ Neutral point of view is a fundamental Wikipedia principle. According to Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, NPOV is "absolute and non-negotiable."[1]

All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), representing fairly and without bias all significant views (that have been published by reliable sources). For guidance on how to make an article conform to the neutral point of view, see the NPOV tutorial; For examples and explanations that illustrate key aspects of this policy, see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/FAQ.

 ”
“ The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source. Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or is likely to be challenged, or it may be removed. ”
“ Original research (OR) is a term used in Wikipedia to refer to unpublished facts, arguments, concepts, statements, or theories. The term also applies to any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that appears to advance a position — or, in the words of Wikipedia's co-founder Jimmy Wales, would amount to a "novel narrative or historical interpretation."

Wikipedia is not the place for original research. Citing sources and avoiding original research are inextricably linked: the only way to demonstrate that you are not presenting original research is to cite reliable sources that provide information directly related to the topic of the article, and to adhere to what those sources say.

 ”

If you have any questions I will be watching this page for a short time. (Or, you can contact me on my talk-page.) ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 20:09, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I propose to amend the last but one paragraph of the "Central Thesis.." section, because it is incompehensible as it stands. Amended version:

The official French radiation risk agency IRSN (Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire) and the [1] European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR) have given support to the point of view of the LLRC. The IRSN have reported (see [2], and English edition) that it is reasonable for the ECRR to have reservations about ICRP's recommendations on radiation risk, since ICRP bases its advice on the health effects of external radiation from atomic bombs. However, IRSN have stated that arguments of the ECRR are not convincing" and that the ECRR "are not using a strict and constant scientific approach. The main conclusion of the IRSN is that further research is required on a series of topics before a final conclusion can be made.

I think most of the material on this discussion page is out of date and should be deleted. How about deleting down to "Policies to consider"? Richard Bramhall 11:19, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Proposed redrafting of Chernobyl accident report section. The section (as at 3rd May 2007) discusses two separate reports neither of which is the work of LLRC, so I propose to delete most of it except for a reference to the LLRC review of the TORCH report. It should be noted that Dr. Busby was not involved with the review of TORCH and that the LLRC web site doesn't review the ECRR report.

[edit] Chernobyl accident report

The LLRC condemns the TORCH report on Chernobyl as "a theoretical review of a small part of the evidence accrued in twenty years since the Chernobyl disaster" [3]

[edit] Trinity Glass

I propose to delete the section headed Trinity Glass as it has no obvious relevance to anything LLRC says or does. Is this agreed? Did I misunderstand the point of discussing Trinity Glass? Richard Bramhall 09:47, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Timing of DNA repair"

I propose to delete the "Timing of DNA repair" section unless anyone can clarify its relevance to the second event theory. The first thing is to establish whether a cell would survive and repair 200 single strand breaks and 35 double strand breaks, only then can we go on to any meaningful discussion of timing and of who is correct - Goodhead or Busby. A key criterion of SET is that the cell must survive both events, otherwise there's no transformation (supposing we ignore the bystander effect for a moment). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.142.10.60 (talk) 17:40, 11 May 2007 (UTC).

The section on timing should remain as the half life of Y-90 (Sr-90's daughter) is 64 hours. Sr-90 has been identified as one of the most important second event isotopes by Chris Busby, according to Goodhead's work a Sr-90 damaged cell will be very likely to repair its self fully before the decay of the Y-90. As a result the section on the timing of DNA repair is very important. Goodhead's work would suggest that many of the Y-90 decays do not occur within the time required for the second event theory.
I would also suggest that we should trust Goodhead more than Busby, Goodhead's work has been cited in serious research papers on DNA damage/DNA repair. For instance see [[4]] and[5]. On the other hand Busby has been concentrating on epidemiology, he has then made some attempts to create a mechanistic theory which then explains the results which he claims to have obtained. From what I have seen of his published work there is little hard evidence to support his claims about the mechanisms of DNA damage/DNA reapir. We need to understand the difference between mechanism and final outcome, the epidemiology can be used to observe the final outcome.
Chris Busby is perfectly free to conduct microbiological / DNA experiments to study the damage and reapir of DNA, so if he considers that his theorys are correct then he is perfectly free to make an attempt at confirming the mechanism (To date I have not seen any evidence that he has obtained such conformation under well controlled lab conditions). So as a result while we wait for further work on the rate of DNA repair I think that we should trust Goodwin's claims about the timing.Cadmium

I notice you don't address the point I raised about the massive amount of damage the alpha would do. Does this mean you concede it? You don't seem to understand what SET is, so it's no wonder you bring in such irrelevant issues. The 10 or so hours under discussion is the time the cell takes to get to the sensitive phase G2/M, not the time you say it takes for the SSB repair. This was not disputed, even by CERRIE. If the timing had been an issue, we'd have heard about it (did you notice that Goodhead was the chairman of CERRIE?). If you want now to discuss the relative probabilities of the Y90 decay intercepting the sensitive phase, rather than the current version's stuff about SSBs and DSBs, then we can have that debate, but the content will need to be substantially changed if it's to make any sense. What do you propose? Llrc 21:45, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Well the single strand break will be repaired differently to a double strand break. The book which I cited held the view that the low LET radiation causes damage which required a short length of time to repair while the high LET radiation causes double strand damage which requires a longer time to repair. If you mean that the DNA undergoes damage, and then is repaired before the cell enters a sensitive phase (where the DNA has been repaired) then it may clear up the confusion by adding a reference to a paper in which it can be shown to be the case.Cadmium
Cadmium, yes I do quite explicitly mean there is a sensitive phase; I mean it because that is what the SEt addresses. I can provide the source you request. The confusion will only be cleared up if the irrelevant discussion of DSB and SSB repair is removed, along with the erroneous suggestion that Busby and Goodhead disagree about the theory on the grounds of DSB and SSB repair. I repeat: what text do you propose? Richard Bramhall 86.142.10.60 21:24, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Well I will let you choose and write some text to put the record straight. I think that even while we hold different points of view, I think that I can trust you to write some text which explains the exact details of when the sensitive phase in the cell's existance (this is the one which exists after the first event).Cadmium


I see that the system has changed the name that is recorded when I type 4 tildes. I now appear as Llrc where previously I was Richard Bramhall. I shall revert to typing my name. Incidentally I see on an Llrc talk page somewhere an abusive comment about some vandalistic changes I am said to have put on a page about the mole. I've never knowingly looked at any such page, far less altered it. Richard Bramhall Llrc 21:51, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Interesting thing, that comment about the mole (6.022 x 1023 not the small animal which digs up the lawn). I noticed that someone had given you a rocketing for so called vandalism, when you had corrected a real error. I think that you were not acting as a vandal, but I would suggest not getting too angry with things such as the edit summary as it can irk the trolls and make them more abusive. I added a comment under the rocketing to say why I thought the rocketing was wrong.Cadmium


Yes, I know what kind of mole it was. My point was that the Wikipedia system has changed the way I am identified. As an illustration I mentioned that someone seems to have assumed my identity when changing the mole article – something I have never got involved with. I cannot imagine why anyone would want to do such a thing but none of this increases my confidence in the Wikipedia system. Richard Bramhall 86.142.10.60 21:24, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Regarding the mole, it was a lame attempt at hummor when I remarked which mole it was. I would be interested to know what has happened regarding the LLRC account. I would be interested to know who the LLRC account is held by. When I saw it I thought that it was an account held by a member of staff at the LLRC. One of the problems here at wikipedia is that it is possible to sign up for an account claiming to be someone else, for instance I could sign up for an account as Chris Busby, Ronald McDonald, Mr Blooby or anyone else you care to mention (I think that to claim to be someone you are not is bad form, as the person who are claiming to be might be unhappy about it). One thing which you could do is to ask your officemates (and anyone who might be using the web via the same proxy/router as you) if they have signed up as LLRC. The reason I suggest this is that they might share an IP address with you, this could result in the wikipedia web site mixing the two of you up.Cadmium


I have made substantial changes to the Second Event theory section to remove the irrelevant considerations of single vs. double strand breaks, and adding sources for the sensitive phase of the cell cycle. I reordered it to tidy things up and to put the timing issues into a logical sequence. At the same time I made several minor changes, including removing the tendentious reference to flat earth theories. There are times when humour tips over into smart-arsery. Richard Bramhall Llrc 08:39, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Well I would say that a life without humour would be a very sad life, but I can live without the reference to a clearly wrong theory (flat earth) which would have somewhat drastic effects upon our lives. I think that ships falling off the edge of a flat earth or 747s flying into space after the flat disk finishs is unlikely to occur. I think that the manner in which some of the arguments are discussed needs to be altered, I made an edit which was reverted recently in which I rewrote some text to remove the self reference. I belive that the rules here are they wikipedia should never cite it's self, while I imagine that an article on the vandal known as willy on wheels could get away with describing some of his outrages which occured on other pages, I think that for an article to cite itself or to discuss its own history in the current way is not what is wanted by the majority of the wikipedia community.Cadmium

Ok, now that you have explained what you meant by "self reference" (i.e. Wikipedia citing itself) I can concede the point. Part of it anyway. What would you prefer instead of "On this site it has been argued that … etc etc "? – "Some have speculated that …?" If I were reading the article I'd prefer to know did the speculating. The point is that the earlier version gave no source for the opinion that the dose protraction study (you?) cited runs counter to the Second Event theory. I drafted the amendment to draw attention to the lack of a source. The theory is extremely well specified as to the time scale of the irradiation events. No paper on dose protraction or split doses can be claimed to undermine the theory unless it has a comparable time frame. These issues have been addressed elsewhere and a long time ago. Your speculation about dose protraction is an example of what the LLRC article contained when we first found it — so much that was plainly wrong, irrelevant, out-of-date and ill-informed — and this is why I so frequently appeal to you to discuss changes before they go onto the main page. These errors, which are consistent in their tendency to discredit LLRC and its arguments, do not serve Wikipedia's purpose. This is a serious shortcoming.
As for humour, you miss the point once again. I am not arguing for a world without it. I am saying jokes sometimes serve to inflame especially where, in the context of discussing a scientific theory, you choose to invoke flat earthism. There's a big difference between a smile and a smirk. Richard Bramhall Llrc 10:58, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Hi Richard agin, you commented above that No paper on dose protraction or split doses can be claimed to undermine the theory unless it has a comparable time frame. Chris Busby cited one paper in which the time delay between the two halves of the dose was circa 7 hours. In the abstract of the paper published in Radiation Research, 2006, 166(6), 832-838. The dose of 1 Gy was delivered to the cells over a series of lengths of time. These were between 8.77 and 87.7 hours, the abstract stated for a dose delivered over 35 hours or more (low dose rate) no transformation of the cells occured. Also for the 1 Gy dose delivered over 8.77 to 18.3 hours that the biological effect was about 1.5 times smaller than that which that had been observed using a single high dose rate of X-ray photons of similar energy. So it is clear that the findings in that paper do not agree with the hypothesis of the second event theroy.Cadmium

Which of Busby's writings are you referring to, please? Richard Bramhall Llrc 23:24, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I am making a reference to the fact that Chris cites a series of at least three papers where the effect of splitting a X-ray dose into two halves has a greater effect than a single dose does. The text in the article which makes a reference to the citations made by Chris in his work is shown below. (I think that the text below is a clear passage of text which tells the truth about some of the papers which relate to the second event theory. These papers are important as Chris used them to help him formulate the theroy. I am not 100% of who added the sources to the text of the article).Cadmium

In some 1970s experiments comparing the effects of a single X-ray exposure with two exposures at the same total dose it was observed that the transformation rate was increased by a factor of two when two 250mGy doses were administered (with a 7.5 hour time between the doses) compared with a single dose of 500 mGy.[2][3][4] In Wings of Death Busby claims that these results support his Second Event hypothesis.

The paragraph from the article which you have quoted was written by me, and I included the references.
I haven't been able to see the Radiation Research paper you cite, but on the basis of what you say about it I have to ask whether it's about split dose or protracted dose i.e. was it continuous, 2 doses, lots of little ones or what? This is crucial to whether it's relevant at all. Also important to ask if it gives a reason for choosing 8.77 to 18.3 hours. Richard Bramhall Llrc 07:55, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
The latest changes made by Cadmium ignore my previous entry (above). Wikipedia's editorial people are aware of Cadmium's biased activities. They have failed to rein him in. The freedom editors have to post vandalistic, erroneous and time wasting material militates against any credibility Wikipedia may have as a purveyor of reliable information. Richard Bramhall Llrc 21:10, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

If you want to read the abstract about the dose rate experiment then please see [6].Cadmium
Ok thanks. I've read the abstract now. It appears that the radiation was delivered continuously, so the question I asked above remains - how is the study relevant to the second event theory? Richard Bramhall Llrc 09:57, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Dear Richard, The split dose experiments can be related to the dose rate experiments if the short doses in the split dose experiments are further split into a vast series of very small doses. I think that the average scientist will agree that if the second event theory exists then for the dose rate experiments that a moderate increase in the harmful effect of radiation will be noticed. But I have looked into the literature and it is clear that no consensus exists within the scientific community on the question of "is radiation (dose < 1 Sv) more dangerous at low dose rates" so no conclusions can be drawn. Also the paper on split X-ray doses which Chris cited when he was formulating the second event theory has been contradicted by other studies,[5] so I think that it is reasonable to tell the reader that no consensus exists and that different studies have given totally different results.Cadmium

Cadmium, No. SEt is highly specific about the time scale and its relationship with the cell cycle. For the example of Strontium-90 it concerns single atoms and the relative probability of the second radioactive decay to Yttrium-90 intersecting the cell repair. But in order to see anything at all experimentally we have to look to cell cultures and huge numbers of radiation events, rather than the two decays. This is why the experiment has to be designed very precisely if it is to replicate the exposure of interest. If doses are continuous or "split into a vast series of very small doses" the cell repair process in the culture will be constantly disrupted. This does not approximate the SEt conditions. The lack of consensus about low dose rates is therefore irrelevant. The section on dose rate is is irrelevant. It ought to be deleted or put somewhere else in the entry – it doesn't belong in the SEt section. Richard Bramhall

Cadmium, I meant to add that the reference you gave above doesn't direct to anything — the one which you say contradicts the split X-ray work cited by Busby in support of SEt. I suspect you may be citing studies which, as Busby has already shown, do not meet the SEt criteria. If not — if the time periods for the split (not protracted) doses do meet the criteria — then let me know. Richard Bramhall Llrc 09:24, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Dear Richard, I have added the code to make the references appear below if you want to see the reference. I would be interested to know if Chris would be able to supply a graph of time delay between two doses and the rate of induction of some change in a biological system. This would be of very great interest when it comes to a discussion of the second event theory.Cadmium
Formatting the references is useful. I have looked at the abstract of the Rad Res article you cite. It doesn't say anything about the timing of exposures which, as I have said, are crucial. We do not subscribe to Rad Res so I can't comment further. Since Busby dealt with the timing in some depth 12 years ago in Wings of Death (pp.209-212) and since I have discussed it here recently I think the onus is on you to provide the detail of any claimed refutation or the time delay graph you suggest. You are in email contact with Busby, so you can ask him to discuss this further if you want. Richard BramhallLlrc 08:32, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

  1. ^ "A few things are absolute and non-negotiable, though. NPOV for example." in statement by Jimbo Wales in November 2003 and, in this thread reconfirmed by Jimbo Wales in April 2006 in the context of lawsuits.
  2. ^ Borek C. Neoplastic transformation following split doses of X-rays British Journal of Radiology 50, 485-6, 1979
  3. ^ Borek C and Hall E J Effect of split doses of X-rays on neoplastic transformation of single cells Nature 252 499-501 1974
  4. ^ Miller R C and Rossi H H Oncogenic transformation in cultured mouse embryo cells with split doses of X-rays Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 76 5755-8, 1979
  5. ^ Sami S. Qutob, Asha S. Multani, S. Pathak, James P. McNamee, Pascale V. Bellier, Qing Yan Liu and Cheng E. Ng,Radiation Research, 2006, 166(4), 590-599

[edit] This article requires copy editing

I have placed the {{copyedit}} template at the top of this article. Problems I noticed with a quick look-over include overuse of italics (especially in section headings), use of rhetorical questions, incorrect use of heading levels, and inappropriate use of HTML. The size of the article and the prevalence of stylistic errors indicates that the style, and probably voice and citation practises, of the entire article should be review and corrected.

I have fixed the most obvious style problems: heading levels and italics in headings. An experience editor who is familiar with this article should do a thorough cleanup to find and fix other errors.

I have been busy outside Wikipedia lately, so please do me the favour of dropping a note at my talk page if there are any responses here. — Saxifrage ✎ 19:09, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Other problems I have noticed in my second look-over are the abuse of <blockquote> and <br/> tags, and the inappropriate address of the reader as "you". Further, the article appears to be far too long for the subject matter, going into details of radioisotopes that are irrelevant to this group's place in the world, for example, and devoting a lot of exposition to the fine details of the group's views rather than the more appropriate encyclopedic overview.

I would suggest sending this article to Wikipedia:Requests for feedback for help with extensive retooling. — Saxifrage ✎ 19:24, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

In fixing some of the citations and reading the surrounding text, it appears that this article suffers from a high degree of original research as well. — Saxifrage ✎ 19:41, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

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