AW: [ RadSafe ] Chernobyl's Reduced Impact

[John Jacobus]

Jaro,
No, I did for get about Goriania.  My issue is stating
the people suffer from radiophobia does not solve
anything.  There are lots of fears labeled as phobias.
 Yet, people do continue to function and live there
lives.  Do you think people really go around worring
about the radiation exposures they receive?  

The problems is certain preception of risks.  When
most people have a CT scan, they do not think much if
anything about the radiation dose.  However, some will
see stories in the news about cancers in children or
cognitive brain develop.  (I know, because I answer
questions as part of my work with the Health Physics
Society.)  Similarly, there are people who fear going
to the dentist.  Do we call it periodontalphobia?  

My statements are based on the idea that simplist
statements like people of Chernobyl suffering from
radiophobia.  What they suffered from, as well as the
people of Gionia, is truth from their governments and,
as you indicate, hysteria whipped up by the media.  I
do not buy into the arguement that everyone of the
people who are depressed is suffering from
radiophobia.  I think many are suffering from loss of
jobs, displacements from homes, and lack of trust in
governments, not radiophobia.

When I was growing up, we were afraid of a nuclear
attack, with images of mushroom clouds over our
cities.  There was no talk of radiophobia and the LNT.
 I do agree the Ranine that people do not understand
and in some cases fear radiation because of stories
they read or hear.  However, images of nuclear power
plants with mushroom clouds over them harkens to the
nuclear bombs, not the LNT hypothesis.  

--- Jaro <jaro-10kbq at sympatico.ca> wrote:

> John, you seem to forget that the Radiophobia that
> the Chernobyl victims
> endured is not unique -- why don't you go have a
> look in the Radsafe
> archives under "Goiania", "Jose Julio Rozental",
> etc. ?
> 
> The January 1991 special issue of Health Physics
> journal, subtitled "The
> Goiania Radiation Accident," the specialist
> physicians of the Instituo de
> Radioprotecao e Dosimetria of Brazil explained,
> 
> <quote>
> ....irresponsible yellow journalism stirred fear in
> the population
> ...hysteria instigated by the media was very
> expensive for the government
> and extremely painful to those involved... the
> victims of Cesium 137 were
> rejected by an entire city and its population... as
> much discriminated
> against by society (as are) AIDS patients.
> <end quote>
> 
> Now scale that situation up by about a factor of a
> hundred thousand, and
> you've got the situation described by the U.N.'s the
> Chernobyl Forum.
> 
>  Jaro
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl
> [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl]On
> Behalf Of John Jacobus
> Sent: Friday, September 09, 2005 3:38 PM
> To: Rainer.Facius at dlr.de;
> michael.g.stabin at Vanderbilt.Edu;
> radsafe at radlab.nl
> Subject: Re: AW: [ RadSafe ] Chernobyl's Reduced
> Impact
> 
> 
> Rainer,
> I think the causes of mental illness, alcoholism,
> depression, etc. is due primarily to the people
> being
> displaced from there home, loss of income, and being
> lied to by their government.
> 
> In this country, large numbers of people were
> evacuated, separated from family and friends, and
> sent
> to places have never been before.  The difference, I
> hope, is that the citizens of our country will get
> medical, housing and living assistance.  Large
> numbers
> of mental health professions have already been
> dispacted.  Otherwise we could have a new outbreak
> of
> hurricainephobia.
> 
> Radiophobia is a nice term.  However, you see these
> same symptoms when natural or man-made disaster
> occur,
> and people are displaced.  Blaming every preceived
> problem on the use of the LNT hypothesisis the same
> as
> anti-nuclear people blaming radiation for every
> cancer.
> 
> Simplisticc, but not very scientific.
> 
> 


+++++++++++++++++++
"Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea and never shrinks back to its original proportion." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird at yahoo.com

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