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Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Genetic Background Matters

This study shows that it matters in relating skin cancer risk to UV exposure, but it also matters for other cancer risks and ionizing radiation.

Many people make the mistake of thinking that the linear, no threshold risk model applies to individuals, but it doesn't.  It applies to a population.  An individual may be at less or greater risk than the population as a whole.  And different populations can have different radiation cancer risks.  This should be obvious in the case of UV radiation where darker skinned populations are at less risk than lighter skinned ones, but there can also be traits which cause differential ionizing radiation responses.

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