Cancer Risk Assessment, Its Wretched History and Its Impact on Public Health

Presented by 

Edward J. Calabrese, Professor of Toxicology at the University of Massachusetts, 

School of Public Health and Health Sciences, Amherst.

April 13, 2024, 1:30-3:00pm

On YouTube, (https://youtube.com/live/3R8YuZXUklI?feature=share) 

The historical foundations of cancer risk assessment were based on fundamental scientific errors that were never corrected, all within the framework of an extraordinary appeal to the authority of the radiation genetics community, led by Hermann J Muller. Even though these individuals were greatly talented and accomplished, they were driven by ideological and self-serving professional biases that would lead to both falsification of the research record and suppression of key scientific findings, all in an effort to establish the linear no-threshold (LNT) model for hereditary and cancer risk assessment, replacing the threshold dose response model. This troubling history has now been revealed in a long series of peer reviewed publications by the author and summarized in a 22-episode documentary by the Health Physics Society* (https://hps.org/hpspublications/historylnt/episodeguide.html). This troubling history remained hidden from the regulatory agencies around the globe since their inception. These groups simply and uncritically accepted a flawed and corrupt history, assuming that it was accurate and reliable. Yet, this path of historical ignorance led the US EPA, and other national regulatory agencies, to accept a dishonest foundation upon which to base and frame cancer risk assessment, terribly failing in their public service mission. This untenable situation has placed a continuing stranglehold on the actions of all regulatory agencies worldwide, improperly guiding its philosophies, policies and practices down to the present time.

(*Note that the views expressed in these videos do not necessarily represent official positions of the Health Physics Society.)

Edward J. Calabrese is a Professor of Toxicology at the University of Massachusetts, School of Public Health and Health Sciences, Amherst. Dr. Calabrese has researched extensively in the area of host factors affecting susceptibility to pollutants, and is the author of over 1,000 papers in scholarly journals, as well as more than 10 books. Dr. Calabrese was awarded the 2009 Marie Curie Prize from the World Council of Nuclear Workers for his body of work on hormesis. He was the recipient of the International CCN Society's Springer award for 2010. He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Science Degree from McMaster University in 2013. In 2014 he was awarded the Petr Beckmann Award from Doctors for Disaster Preparedness. Dr. Calabrese was awarded the G. William Morgan Lectureship Award and the Robert S. Landauer, Sr., Lectureship Award in 2022 from the Health Physics Society.