[ RadSafe ] Re: Fw: Someone just responded to your comment

[bobcherry at cox.net]

Roger,

A typical activist trick is to say that the experts who have devoted their professional lives to a learning a discipline are not to be trusted to tell the truth about it while they, the activists, who generally are amateur hacks like Salsman, know all about it and are honest.

The irony here with respect to health physicists is that if the HPS agreed with the activists about the hazards of ionizing radiation (and if the activists were correct), the health physicists would be paid more and there would be a greater number of health physicists. I don't see this sort of counter-argument used very often, if ever.

Bob C
> 
> From: "Roger Helbig" <rhelbig at california.com>
> Date: 2005/09/04 Sun AM 03:01:32 EDT
> To: "Bob Cherry" <BobCherry at cox.net>
> Subject: Fw: Someone just responded to your comment
> 
> He mentions you in this latest response .. his buddy Rabbitvoz managed to get bounced from the list .. they do enforce the rules of civility after all
> 
> Roger
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: <admin at inthesetimes.com>
> To: <rhelbig at california.com>
> Sent: Saturday, September 03, 2005 11:50 PM
> Subject: Someone just responded to your comment
> 
> 
> jsalsman just responded to the entry you subscribed to at In These Times.
> 
> The title of the entry is:
> Radioactive Wounds of War
> 
> You can see the comment at the following URL:
> http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2298/P160/
> 
> Asking the Health Physics Society about DU is like asking the tobacco 
> industry about smoking, before they started losing their lawsuits.  For 
> example, HPS program committee officer and author Colonel Robert N. Cherry 
> claimed in official correspondence to the NRC that, "the army has safely 
> developed and tested depleted uranium ... munitions for many years.  We are 
> determined to continue this record.... use in battle of depleted uranium 
> munitions is essential...." 
> http://www.bovik.org/du/nrc-2000-petition/army-reply.tif
> 
> If you want a neutral source, how about the World Health Organization?  
> "Until more 
> information on the chemical form of uranium and DU in the environment is 
> obtained, it would be prudent to assume that it is in a soluble form (ICRP 
> Type F)." -- from Chapter 8, "The Chemical Toxicity of Uranium," of 
> "Depleted Uranium:  Sources, Exposure and Health Effects," World Health 
> Organization, Ionizing Radiation Unit, 2001.  (UO2, U3O8 are "insoluble" 
> and mostly harmless; uranyl compounds like UO3 are "soluble" and toxic due 
> to their DNA damage.) 
> 
> Do not reply to this message.  To continue the discussion please return to 
> comment link above. 
> 
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