[ RadSafe ] Re:Reasonable risk?

[John Jacobus]

Glenn,
In every court case I am aware of in which a worker
making a claim of excess radiation exposure, they have
lost.  As long as the employer can show that followed
regulatory guides to keep exposure less that
regulatory limits, they will win no matter how the
"sleazy lawyer" tries.

--- "Glenn R. Marshall" <GRMarshall at philotechnics.com>
wrote:

> 
> That's exactly the point!  
> 
> The fact that annual doses are maintained below the
> regulatory limit of
> 5 rem per year does not mean my employer is
> protected fro future
> litigation, because the regulations also say we must
> maintain exposures
> as low as reasonably achievable.  What does that
> mean?  Yeah, I know
> what it means to me, and I know the regulatory
> definition.  But in a
> court of law, it means whatever a sleazy lawyer can
> convince a judge and
> jury to agree to.
> 
> If the law were to say the annual limit is 2 rem (3
> rem, 0.5 rem -
> whatever), fine - I can do that.  But the law also
> says I must adhere to
> some gray area.  LNT says every photon is
> potentially fatal.  ALARA says
> every time someone is exposed to a single photon,
> the employer is
> potentially at risk of legal action unless he can
> prove that single
> photon could not have "reasonably" been avoided.
> 
> Vast sums of money are spent chasing after a
> constantly moving target.
> The public health benefit from all this, if there is
> one, is so small as
> to be impossible to measure.  But the costs -
> additional payroll, taxes,
> mental anguish, worry, withheld diagnostic or
> therapeutic procedures,
> petroleum imports, etc. - are so high as to also be
> immeasurable.
> 
> So while ALARA looks good on paper, its practical
> application is far
> from reasonable.  It, fed by misuse of LNT, has
> become the ace in the
> hole for the Anti-Everything crowd.
> 
> Glenn 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Jacobus [mailto:crispy_bird at yahoo.com] 
> Sent: Friday, April 21, 2006 9:39 AM
> To: jjcohen at prodigy.net; Flanigan, Floyd; Michael
> Bohan;
> radsafe at radlab.nl
> Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Re:Reasonable risk?
> 
> Jerry,
> I certainly have no way of knowing if you actions
> are
> reasonable.  
> 
> 


+++++++++++++++++++
"A scientist's aim in a discussion with his colleagues is not to persuade, but to clarify." 
Leo Szilard
-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird at yahoo.com

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