[ RadSafe ] Risks from rdaition overstated

[Otto G. Raabe]

At 03:47 AM 7/13/2006, Dawson, Fred Mr wrote:
>On 26 April 1986, reactor number four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power
>Plant blew up. Forty-eight hours later the entire area was evacuated.
>Over the following months there were stories of mass graves and dire
>warnings of thousands of deaths from radiation exposure.  Yet in a BBC 
>Horizon report to be screened on Thursday, a number ofscientists argue 
>that 20 years after the accident there is no crediblescientific evidence 
>that any of these predications are coming true
>According to figures from the Chernobyl Forum, an international
>organisation of scientific bodies including a number of UN agencies,
>deaths directly attributable to radiation from Chernobyl currently stand
>at 56 - less than the weekly death toll on Britain's roads.
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July 13 , 2006

Although there were thyroid cancers cause by high doses from I-131, the LNT 
and other RERF-based predictions concerning cancer deaths associated with 
exposures of large populations to ionizing radiation after the Chernobyl 
accident have proved to be totally wrong. It should be clear that the LNT 
and other estimates based on high dose-rate acute radiation exposures of 
atomic bomb survivors do not apply to lower dose-rate protracted exposures 
nor to lower doses. We need to relax our current ridiculously restrictive 
clean-up standards that will cost the U.S. billions of dollars 
unnecessarily. That money would be better spent on cancer or stem-cell 
research.

Otto

Prof. Otto G. Raabe, Ph.D., CHP
Center for Health & the Environment
University of California
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616
E-Mail: ograabe at ucdavis.edu
Phone: (530) 752-7754   FAX: (530) 758-6140