First the Bad News, Then the Good News. An honored scientist, who has a fine track-record of being correct, uncovers the first powerful evidence that xray procedures are a MAJOR cause, for men and women, of Cancer AND of Ischemic Heart Disease (also called Coronary Heart Disease, Coronary Artery Disease, and Myocardial Ischemia).
These two discoveries (not previously published elsewhere) point to a safe and painless way to achieve big reductions in mortality from both diseases --- because the undeniable benefits of xray procedures can be obtained, demonstrably, at much lower levels of xray dosage. Exposure to xrays, including fluoroscopy and CT scans, is a well-established cause of structural chromosomal aberrations and other mutations, even at very low doses and dose-rates.
Because the author's two discoveries are so startling, he shares at the outset (Chapter 1) the eight reasons which combine to make him confident that the findings are scientifically sound.
The content of this book is important to everyone who has either a professional or a personal interest in understanding and preventing Cancer and Ischemic Heart Disease. These two diseases account for 45% of deaths in the USA. The book presents strong evidence that medical radiation is one of their important causes.
Like detectives, many readers ENJOY evaluating evidence of causation. They seek data-and-logic, and are not intimidated by it. Such readers will find this to be a reader-friendly book. It uses no complex statistical operations. It shows each step between the raw data and the conclusions. And, because readers will "arrive" from many different fields, it defines even basic terms and concepts.
The nature of the evidence in this book will be comprehensible not only to biomedical and public health scientists, physicians, and undergraduate students worldwide, but also to non-medical scientists, engineers, lawyers, and health activists. The book begins with a short Introduction, an Abstract, and an Executive Summary.
Nearly all physicians --- whether they be radiologists, surgeons, gynecologists, cardiovascular specialists, general practitioners, or other --- either administer or "order" medical xrays. They need to know the findings and implications of this book for the health of their patients, regarding two of the most serious diseases in the United States. One implication: The undeniable benefits of xrays need to be, and demonstrably can be, obtained at much lower dose-levels than the levels commonly in use.
Patients today, who diligently inform themselves about the causes and prevention of various ailments, may wish to talk over the discoveries in this book with their own physicians.
Scientific inquiry is often organized around the exploration of hypotheses. Evidence is presented to test the validity of the hypotheses in logical ways. While an untested hypothesis is a speculation, hypotheses which PASS appropriate tests are the very substance of scientific knowledge.
This book presents a mountain of evidence which supports the two hypotheses stated on the book's cover. The first is that medical radiation is a highly important cause (probably the principal cause) of cancer mortality in the United States during the Twentieth Century. The second is that medical radiation, received even at very low and moderate doses, is an important cause of death from Ischemic Heart Disease; the probable mechanism is radiation-induction of mutations in the coronary arteries, resulting in dysfunctional clones (mini-tumors) of smooth muscle cells.
The Author's History, by Egan O'Connor John William Gofman is Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California at Berkeley, CA 94720-5706. He is also on the faculty at the University of California Medical School at San Francisco (UCSF). His life's work is divisible into three main areas, which converge for the first time in this monograph. Some of the earlier work is cited in the monograph's Reference List.
While a graduate student at U.C. Berkeley, Gofman earned his Ph.D. (1943) in nuclear/physical chemistry, with his dissertation on the discovery of Pa-232, U-232, Pa-233, and U-233, the proof that U-233 is fissionable by slow and fast neutrons, and discovery of the 4n + 1 radioactive series. His faculty advisor was Glenn T. Seaborg (who became Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, 1961-1971). Seaborg, Gofman, and Raymond W. Stoughton share Patent #3,123,535 on the slow and fast neutron fissionability of uranium-233, with its application to production of nuclear power or nuclear weapons. The work is recounted in Seaborg's book "Nuclear Milestones" (1972).
Post-doctorally, Gofman continued research related to the first atomic bombs --- particularly the chemistry of plutonium, at a time when the world's total supply was less than 0.25 milligram. He shares patents #2,671,251 and #2,912,302 on two processes for separating plutonium from the uranium and fission products of irradiated nuclear fuel. "We all were pushing the envelope in those years, and in the process, we learned the habit of observing details very closely."
After the plutonium work, Gofman completed medical school (1946) at UCSF, where the faculty and his classmates selected him to receive the annual Gold-Headed Cane Award for having the qualities of "a true physician."
In 1947, following his internship in Internal Medicine, Gofman joined the faculty at U.C. Berkeley (Division of Medical Physics), where he began his research on lipoproteins and Coronary Heart Disease at the Donner Laboratory. At the time, only two types of blood lipoproteins were known: Alpha and beta. By devising special flotation techniques with the ultracentrifuge, he and Frank T. Lindgren and co-workers at the Donner Lab began to reveal (1949-1950) the great diversity of very-low-density, intermediate-density, low-density, and high-density lipoproteins (VLDL, IDL, LDL, HDL) which truly exist in the bloodstream.
Their work on the chemistry of lipoproteins (e.g., the cholesterol-rich and triglyceride-rich varieties), and on dietary experiments, and on epidemiologic studies, soon produced evidence that high blood levels of the LDL, IDL, and VLDL lipoproteins are a risk-factor for Coronary Heart Disease.
In 1954, Gofman received the Modern Medicine Award for outstanding contributions to heart disease research. In 1965, he received the Lyman Duff Lectureship Award of the American Heart Association, for his research in atherosclerosis and Coronary Heart Disease. In 1972, he shared the Stouffer Prize for outstanding contributions to research in arteriosclerosis. In 1974, the American College of Cardiology selected him as one of twenty-five leading researchers in cardiology of the past quarter-century.
Meanwhile, in the early 1960s, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) asked Gofman to establish a Biomedical Research Division at the AEC's Livermore National Laboratory, for the purpose of evaluating the health effects of all types of nuclear activities. From 1963-1965, Gofman served as the division's first director and concurrently as an Associate Director of the full laboratory. Then he stepped down from the administrative activities in order to have more time for his own laboratory research on Cancer and chromosomes (the Boveri Hypothesis), on radiation-induced chromosomal mutations and genomic instability, and for his analytical work on the epidemiologic data from the Japanese atomic-bomb survivors and other irradiated human populations.
By 1969, Gofman and a Livermore colleague, Dr. Arthur R. Tamplin, had concluded that human exposure to ionizing radiation was much more serious than previously recognized. Because of this finding, Gofman and Tamplin spoke out publicly against two AEC programs which they had previously accepted. One was Project Plowshare, a program to explode hundreds or thousands of underground nuclear bombs in the Rock Mountains in order to liberate (radioactive) natural gas, and to use nuclear explosives also to excavate harbors and canals. The second was the plan to license about 1,000 commercial nuclear power plants (USA) as quickly as possible. In 1970, Gofman and Tamplin proposed a 5-year moratorium on that activity.
The AEC was not pleased. Seaborg recounts some of the heated conversations among the Commissioners in his book "The Atomic Energy Commission under Nixon: Adjusting to Troubled Times" (1993). By 1973, Livermore de-funded Gofman's laboratory research on chromosomes and Cancer. He returned to teaching full-time at U.C. Berkeley, until choosing an early and active "retirement" in order to concentrate fully on pro-bono research into human health-effects from radiation.
His 1981, 1985, 1990, 1994, and 1995/96 books present a series of findings. His 1990 book includes his proof, "by any reasonable standard of biomedical proof," that there is no threshold level (no harmless dose) of ionizing radiation with respect to radiation mutagenesis and carcinogenesis --- a conclusion supported in 1995 by a government-funded radiation committee. His 1995/96 book provides evidence that medical radiation is a necessary co-actor in about 75% of the recent and current Breast Cancer incidence (USA) --- a conclusion doubted but not at all refuted by several peer-reviewers.
John W. Gofman is the son of David and Sarah Gofman --- who immigrated to the USA from czarist Russia in about 1905. JWG was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in September 1918.
