Letters from the March 17, 2007, issue of Science News

Disputable thesis

“Counterintuitive Toxicity: Increasingly, scientists are finding that they can’t predict a poison’s low-dose effects” (SN: 1/20/07, p. 40) took a wrong turn into Hormesis Swamp. The hormesis thesis has been thoroughly discredited by all major radiation organizations and professional societies, and its past conferences have been sponsored by tobacco companies and the U.S.