Low-dose study finds no effects

[PamW]

43. WRONG!!! WRONG!!! WRONG!!!

Just because MIT has a nuclear reactor, that makes them an impeached source??

BALONEY!!! That's like saying that because someone knows how to pilot an airplane, they are an impeached source with regard to issues of airplane safety. If anything, that person has more at stake.

What do you think MIT does with that reactor? You think it is for making money?

The MIT nuclear reactor is involved in research in science and in medicine. Research in those areas are a great benefit to mankind. In fact, the MIT nuclear reactor was instrumental in research that led to the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physics by Prof. Clifford Shull of MIT and Bertram Brockhouse of McMaster University:

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1994/

Additionally, the MIT reactor is used in medical research such as BNCT - Boron Neutron Capture Therapy which is hoped to be useful in treating such challenging cancers as glioblastoma multiforme, a type of brain cancer.

http://web.mit.edu/nrl/www/bnct/

The brain cancer "glioblastoma multiforme" is an aggressive cancer of the brain. It can't be treated by surgery because the tumor sends out a multitude of tentacles. It ends up looking like the root system of a weed in your yard. Imagine trying to remove a weed and its roots from your yard, without pulling up the dirt around the roots.
In "GBM" as it is known; the tumor is the roots, and the dirt is brain tissue. You do too much damage to the brain if you attempt to carve the roots out.

In BNCT, the patient is given a drug devised by pharmacologists at Massachusetts General Hospital. The brain is quite selective about what it will absorb from the blood. This is called the "blood-brain barrier". In cancers, this barrier is compromised, the cancers are less selective than normal tissue. The pharmaceutical developed by MGH is one that the cancerous cells will uptake, but healthy cells will reject. In this manner, the cancer cells are marked for destruction. The pharmaceutical contains Boron, and specifically Boron-10.

After the patient takes the drug and builds up the boron-laden compound in the cancer cells, they are brought to the MIT reactor for irradiation with epi-thermal neutrons from the reactor:

http://web.mit.edu/nrl/www/bnct/facilities/FCB/fcb.html

The epi-thermal neutron slow to thermal energies within the brain tissue. When the newly thermalized neutrons encounter the Boron-10 atoms in the drug, a (n,alpha) reaction results in two high energy charged particles, an alpha particle and a Lithium-7 ion. The range of these charged particle with charges of +2, and +3, respectively is about the radius of a brain cell. This means that the energy of these ions will be deposited in the cell that they are born in, and neighboring cells will be spared. Since the cell that the ions are born in is the one that contains the Boron-10; then it must be a cancer cell. Therefore, the cancer cells are killed and healthy cells spared by this technique which can be cell-specific.

One of the main detractors of this research was the senior US Senator from Massachusetts, Edward Kennedy. Senator Kennedy fought the use of nuclear energy in all its applications. Unfortunately, for Senator Kennedy, he developed "glioblastoma multiforme", the very malady that BNCT is meant to treat. It's a cruel irony that the technique that Senator Kennedy opposed so much, was intended to treat the very disease that ended up killing Senator Kennedy. BNCT research was not advanced enough to save him. Senator Kennedy may have ended up signing his own death warrant.

In order to develop advanced techniques in nuclear medicine, it is necessary to have the best understanding of how radiation interacts with matter and biological systems. Those are the very things that the MIT reactor is used to study. Additionally, knowledge of this type is needed for the safe operation of the reactor, and those that work and research in its vicinity.

MIT has every reason to have the best understanding of radiation and radiation interaction in biological systems.

The fact that MIT has a reactor used in this matter doesn't impeach their expertise; it makes them one of the best in the field.

PamW