Estimating risk of low radiation doses - a critical review of the BEIR VII report and its use of the linear no-threshold (LNT) hypothesis.

This article explores the origin of the linear no-threshold (LNT) dose-response model and how it came to be used in cancer risk assessment worldwide. Following this historical appraisal is an evaluation of the LNT model, within the framework of the BEIR VII report of the National Academy of Sciences, on the health effects of ionizing radiation. The final section of this article provides an assessment of the LNT model's capacity to make accurate predictions of risk in the low-dose zone based on recent molecular mechanistic findings and epidemiological methods, with particular emphasis on the limitations of epidemiological studies to estimate risks in the low-dose zone.