A Critical Assessment of the Linear No-Threshold Hypothesis: Its Validity and Applicability for Use in Risk Assessment and Radiation Protection.

The Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging convened a task group to examine the evidence for the risk of carcinogenesis from low-dose radiation exposure and to assess evidence in the scientific literature related to the overall validity of the linear no-threshold (LNT) hypothesis and its applicability for use in risk assessment and radiation protection. In the low-dose and dose-rate region, the group concluded that the LNT hypothesis is invalid as it is not supported by the available scientific evidence and, instead, is actually refuted by published epidemiology and radiation biology. The task group concluded that the evidence does not support the use of LNT either for risk assessment or radiation protection in the low-dose and dose-rate region.

The Linear No-Threshold Model of Low-Dose Radiogenic Cancer: A Failed Fiction.

The linear no-threshold (LNT) model for low-dose, radiogenic cancer has been a fixture of radiation protection and regulatory requirements for decades, but its validity has long been contested. This article finds, yet again, more questionable data and analyses purporting to support the model, this within the "gold-standard" data set for estimating radiation effects in humans. Herein is addressed a number of significant uncertainties in the Radiation Effects Research Foundation's Life Span Study (LSS) cohort of atomic bomb survivors, especially in its latest update of 2017, showing that the study's support of the LNT model is not evidence based.

RADAR Dose Estimate Report: A Compendium of Radiopharmaceutical Dose Estimates Based on OLINDA/EXM Version 2.0.

A compendium of about 100 radiopharmaceuticals, based on the OLINDA/EXM version 2.0 software, is presented. A new generation of voxel-based, realistic human computational phantoms developed by the RADAR committee of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, based on 2007 recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection, was used to develop the dose estimates, and the most recent biokinetic models were used as well.

Preserving the Anti-Scientific Linear No-Threshold Myth: Authority, Agnosticism, Transparency, and the Standard of Care.

The linear no-threshold (LNT) assumption is over 70 years old and holds that all ionizing radiation exposure leaves cumulative effects, all of which are harmful regardless of how low the dose or dose rate is. The claimed harm centers on the risk of future radiogenic cancer. This has been shown countless times to be fallacious, and hundreds of scientific studies-both experimental and observational/epidemiological-demonstrate that at low enough doses and dose rates, ionizing radiation stimulates an evolved adaptive response and therefore is beneficial to health, rather than raising the risk of cancer.

Dose Optimization to Minimize Radiation Risk for Children Undergoing CT and Nuclear Medicine Imaging Is Misguided and Detrimental.

A debate exists within the medical community on whether the linear no-threshold model of ionizing radiation exposure accurately predicts the subsequent incidence of radiogenic cancer. In this article, we evaluate evidence refuting the linear no-threshold model and corollary efforts to reduce radiation exposure from CT and nuclear medicine imaging in accord with the as-low-as-reasonably-achievable principle, particularly for children. Further, we review studies demonstrating that children are not, in fact, more radiosensitive than adults in the radiologic imaging dose range, rendering dose reduction for children unjustifiable and counterproductive.

Subjecting Radiologic Imaging to the Linear No-Threshold Hypothesis: A Non Sequitur of Non-Trivial Proportion.

Radiologic imaging is claimed to carry an iatrogenic risk of cancer, based on an uninformed commitment to the 70-y-old linear no-threshold hypothesis (LNTH). Credible evidence of imaging-related low-dose (<100 mGy) carcinogenic risk is nonexistent; it is a hypothetical risk derived from the demonstrably false LNTH. On the contrary, low-dose radiation does not cause, but more likely helps prevent, cancer.

Epidemiology Without Biology: False Paradigms, Unfounded Assumptions, and Specious Statistics in Radiation Science (with Commentaries by Inge Schmitz-Feuerhake and Christopher Busby and a Reply by the Authors).

Radiation science is dominated by a paradigm based on an assumption without empirical foundation. Known as the linear no-threshold (LNT) hypothesis, it holds that all ionizing radiation is harmful no matter how low the dose or dose rate. Epidemiological studies that claim to confirm LNT either neglect experimental and/or observational discoveries at the cellular, tissue, and organismal levels, or mention them only to distort or dismiss them.