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Additional Physical Format: | Online version: Gofman, John W. Radiation and human health. San Francisco : Sierra Club Books, ©1981 (OCoLC)559895508 |
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Document Type: | Book |
All Authors / Contributors: |
John W Gofman; Jon Goodchild |
ISBN: | 0871562758 9780871562753 |
OCLC Number: | 6941839 |
Description: | xiv, 908 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
Contents: | 1. Introduction to radiation and human health: -- Whose concerns does this book address? -- An assurance about numbers -- An intention to demystify -- The kinds of practical questions answered in this book -- Full disclosure of how answers were found -- When experts disagree, whom shall we believe? 2. Energy interchanges and health: -- The relationship of ionizing radiation to other forms of energy -- How ionizing radiation interacts with living tissue -- The nature of radioactive decay and its measurement -- Doses: an energy transfer is an energy transfer. 3. Origins of human cancer: implications for radiation causation: -- What is meant by 'radiation causes cancer'? -- The issue of very low radiation doses; -- What is cancer? -- Chromosomes: an introduction -- Chromosome abnormalities in human cancer cells -- Ionizing radiation injury to somatic cells and the development of cancer -- Chromosomes in the hereditary transmission of cancer risk. 4. Induction of cancer and leukemia by ionizing radiation: -- The nature of the latent period -- The 'ideal' study to assess the risk of radiation-induced cancer -- Application of the whole-body cancer dose to an individual. 5. Systematic approach to the quantitative aspects of radiation carcinogenesis, with personal and public-health risk estimates: -- Coping with inadequate follow-up periods by use of peal percents: -- Diverging curves:observed versus expected -- The basis for the conversion factors. 6. Human epidemiological evidence concerning radiation carcinogenesis : the studies involving external exposure: -- Combined tumors in the Hiroshima-Nagasaki series -- Cancer-by-cancer analysis of the Ankylosing Spondylitis series -- Malignant lymphoma and multiple myeloma in Japan -- Cancer of the thyroid and adenoma of the thyroid -- Salivary-gland tumors -- Brain tumors induced by ionizing radiation -- Skin cancer -- Pelvic cancers -- Radiation-induced cancers from job-related exposures: -- The Hanford Death Study; -- Synthesis of peak percents from all human evidence, by age groups -- A potential increase in the carcinogenic effect per rad in the Hiroshima-Nagasaki experience: -- The problem of 'built-in, ' fraudulent thresholds; -- What is the effect of natural and medical radiation on cancer calculations? 7. Induction of human breast cancer by ionizing radiation: -- Quantitative analysis of radiation-induced breast cancer -- Integration of all the breast-cancer data. 8. From peak percents to whole-body cancer doses, by age at irradiation: -- Composite values for peak percents, by age -- Derivation of the whole-body cancer doses, by age. 9. Practical applications of the whole-body cancer dose: -- Exposure of individuals -- Exposure of populations: -- Derivation of the whole-body cancer dose for a population of mixed ages -- Who really bears the brunt of population exposures? -- The whole-body cancer dose: applicability in different countries; -- Comparison of the estimates of radiation-induced cancer in this book with those of other scientific groups. 10. Partial-body irradiation and cancer doses for specific kinds of cancers: -- The evidence supporting a common peak percent for all kinds of cancer: -- Three generalizations about radiation carcinogenesis -- Pitfalls in analyzing the evidence; -- Calculation of various individual-organ cancer doses -- Practical applications of the specific-organ cancer doses -- Assessing risk from multiple-organ and partial-organ irradiation -- The procedure for changing whole-body cancer doses and specific-organ cancer doses if future evidence requires -- Comparison of cancer incidence rates with cancer death rates -- The meaning and calculation of doubling doses. 11. Evidence for a linear or supralinear dose-effect relationship and for the nonexistence of a "threshold" dose: -- Linearity and supralinearity -- Diminishing effect per rad at low doses? -- Protection by dose fractionation: -- The human evidence on dose fractionation -- The myth of slow energy transfer; -- The proposition that there exists a threshold dose: -- The evidence pertaining to existence of a threshold -- The logic against the existence of a threshold; -- Public-health implications. 12. Handling the internal emitters : dosimetry and applications: -- Dosimetry for internally deposited beta-emitters -- Dosimetry for internally deposited alpha-emitters -- Dosimetry for internally deposited gamma-emitters -- Combined radioactive and biological loss from tissue -- Tritium: a radionuclide of public concern. 13. Internal alpha-particle emitters : radium and radon-daughters: -- Cancer production by the famous 226Radium -- Bone cancer from 224/88Radium, another radium nuclide -- Radon carcinogenesis: lung cancer in the uranium miners -- Radon and radon-daughter-product exposure in the general population -- Building materials, ventilation, and exposure to radon and radon-daughter products -- The long-term radon-exposure problem associated with nuclear power -- The lung-cancer hazard for local residents in the vicinity of tailing piles. 14. Biologically important, man-made alpha-particle-emitting nuclides : plutonium and other transuranics: -- Production of the plutonium radionuclides -- Health considerations: the transuranics as a group -- Health hazards of 239Plutonium and of reactor-pu -- Lung-cancer production by plutonium nuclides. 15. Lung cancers already produced by plutonium inhalation: -- The consequences of fallout from atmospheric bomb testing -- Ongoing studies of two sets of workers exposed to plutonium. 16. Plutonium-induced lung cancers in a plutonium energy economy. 17. Likely radiation doses and their effects in a nuclear-power economy. 18. Ionizing-radiation exposures from natural sources, consumer products, and particular occupations: -- Natural sources of ionizing-radiation exposure, and their effects: -- Will home-building materials become an issue? -- Personal versus public-health risk: the genocidal potential of 'small risks' -- Efforts to measure cancer and leukemia produced by natural radiation; -- Industrial and consumer products incorporating radionuclides: -- Two ethical issues -- Proliferating products (a partial listing); -- Occupational exposures to ionizing radiation and their effects: -- Some principles concerning occupational exposure -- Some actual doses reported for various major industries -- Occupational-risk calculations for workers, lawyers and compensation-court judges. 19. Ionizing-radiation exposures from medical diagnostic and therapeutic irradiation: -- X-Rays: uncertainties about the doses received -- X-Rays: What physicians and patients might do in view of uncertainties: -- Two recommended means of approximation -- A gall-bladder examination: irradiation of multiple organs -- Calculation of the risk of cancer for a specific diagnostic procedure -- Is there such a thing as a meaningful average dose for x-ray procedures? -- Dental x-rays and brain cancer; -- The use of radioiodine in nuclear medicine. 20. Induction of human leukemia by ionizing radiation: -- The prospective study: the Japanese bomb survivors -- Some serious questions about the Hiroshima-Nagasaki dosimetry -- Retrospective studies of radiation induction of human leukemia: positive and negative findings: -- The nature of retrospective studies; -- The Tri-State Study of leukemia from medical irradiation -- The linos and co-workers study of leukemia from medical irradiation. 21. Congenital (in utero, teratogenic) effects of ionizing radiation: -- The nonstochastic in utero effects: defects in the central nervous system, skeleton, organs, metabolism, etc.: -- The chromosomal mechanism of congenital abnormality formation -- The Hiroshima and Nagasaki evidence; -- The stochastic in utero effects: cancer and leukemia induction. 22. Genetic and chromosomal effects of ionizing radiation: -- Introduction -- Types of genetic injuries: -- Chromosomal disease: monosomy and trisomy -- Chromosomal disease: deletions and translocations -- The sex chromosomes and the x-linked diseases -- The autosomal dominant diseases -- Definitions: dominant, recessive, and irregularly inherited diseases -- Chromosome loss versus abnormal gene; -- Quantitative importance of genetic and chromosomal diseases -- The simplified quantitative relationships between mutation rate and equilibrium incidence: -- What happens when the mutation rate is changed, by radiation, for example? -- Potential pitfalls in epidemiological studies of genetic effects of radiation; -- Early death in the descendants of the Atom-bomb survivors -- The problem of radiation-induced trisomies in human beings -- An evaluation of recent estimates of the genetic-chromosomal cost of adding one rad of ionizing radiation per generation -- An alternative explanation for irregularly inherited disorders; -- Appendix: Some simple rules for handling small and large numbers and units. |
Responsibility: | by John W. Gofman ; [illustrated by Jon Goodchild]. |
Abstract:
There is a very large fund of accumulated knowledge concerning the effects of low doses of radiation on human health. Yet, the information available is not very useful in its crude, unintegrated form. A major goal of this book is to present and analyze the evidence concerning effects of low doses of radiation upon humans, and to demonstrate that a systematic and consistent evaluations of the evidence is now possible, with very useful practical results.
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Related Subjects:(14)
- Ionizing radiation -- Toxicology.
- Radiation carcinogenesis.
- Radiation -- Dosage.
- Radiation injuries.
- Neoplasms, Radiation-Induced
- Radiation Injuries
- Radiation Dosage
- Rayonnement ionisant -- Toxicologie.
- Tumeurs dues aux radiations.
- Rayonnement -- Dose.
- Mal des rayons.
- Kanker.
- Radioactiviteit.
- Lage stralingsdosis.
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