[FairWitness]

Yes, I know it's very long. You should try typing it in by hand like I did to appreciate how long it is. I gave the link to Discover magazine above, but the way they operate their website, this "December" article will not be posted online for another 4-6 weeks. The above is a full transcription of the article.

This may sound counter-intuitive to many or most of you, but I can vouch for hormesis as a real, reproducible phenomenon not only from reading about it but from my role in supporting industrial toxicology studies (drug metabolis, pharmacokinetics) for 25 years. Most toxicology studies don't show the effect, but occasionally doses are set low enough that it shows up.

[TomB]

Thanks for your effort. I just read this in the magazine and couldn't help but think about all the times I've fought with the Luddites around here over arsenic, fluoride, mercury, ect.

The dose makes the poison.

[FairWitness]

Additional links:

Hormesis: Changing view of the dose-response, a personal account of the history and Current status - E.J. Calabrese

Hormesis and Health: A little of what you fancy may be good for you

[FairWitness]

Arsenic in Drinking Water – What’s Safe?
"- - - in one study done by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, rats ate diets containing arsenic concentrations as high as 250 ppm. After two years (a "lifetime" for a rat) on these diets, the rats had no increase in tumors. Other studies with laboratory animals have shown that (low dose) arsenic actually inhibits cancer.

"Perhaps arsenic should be reduced in drinking water, to 20-25 ppb, but not to 3 ppb. A drastic reduction would not only cost considerable money, it may result in the stated reason for lowering the arsenic: it may be harmful to your health."

Note that the human body contains 50 ppb arsenic as a natural course of the fact that soil, and therefore our food as well as our drinking water, contains arsenic.

Web Elements - Arsenic

Arsenic Abundances
Source	ppb by weight
Universe	8
Sun	No Data
Meteorite (carbonaceous)	1800
Crustal Rocks	2100
Sea Water	2.3
Stream	1
Human	50

[bobg]

Good job.... I live near the Paducah Uranium Enrichment Plant and have been arguing for years against the eco-radicals that want to eliminate any radiation even though it is well below natural background radiation for the area. I am email buddy with Ted Rockwell (first technical director or nuclear navy) and Jim Muckerheide ( Mass. Nuclear Engineer). Keep up the good work.
Bob Gresham

[narby]

All lead was removed from auto fuel, but because of safety issues, aircraft fuel was merely altered to a "low lead" variant (100LL). However, 100LL is now being attacked by the EPA, and the entire general aviation fleet may have to convert to no-lead. This is not as easy as it seems, because the engines in light aircraft are 60 year old designs.

I wonder if there is any evidence that this effect includes exposure to lead? If so, it might enable aviation to avoid a radical and expensive, and unnecessary change.

[FairWitness]

Yet another link:

Chemical Hormesis

In a series of articles, BELLE Newsletter Vol. 6, No. 2, Vol 6, No. 3, and Vol. 7, No. 1, published by the Northeast Regional Environmental Public Health Center, School of Public Health, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, explores the phenomenon of chemical hormesis in biological systems. This phenomenon parallels radiation hormesis, which has been discussed many times in Access to Energy, especially with respect to the work of Bernard Cohen. Cohen has shown that low-level radiation from radon actually decreases the death rate from lung cancer by a very significant amount.

Figure 1 summarizes chemical hormesis in a variety of toxicological systems. The general finding is that toxins often have a positive effect on the health of organisms at low doses. This has serious implications for Environmental Protection Agency regulations based on linear extrapolations to zero dose - that condemn even the slightest trace of a toxin in the environment. In many (possibly most) cases, the EPA actually damages overall human health by these regulations.

As shown in Figure 1, the beneficial effect of a chemical toxin usually rises to about 150% of control and extends over a ten-fold dose before falling to the NOAEL (No Observed Adverse Effect Level).

[hattend]

Bump for later

[The Raven]

This effect, when validated, goes against everything we currently do in setting environmental regulations.

Therefore, it will be ignored.

Same thing happened when the truth surfaced about Socialism.