[ RadSafe ] The last word on DU

[stewart farber]

Dr. Raabe,
Thanks for noting the recently presented paper by Ron Kathren on Uranium 
Toxicity. Ron is uniquely qualified to make a review of this sort.

You suggest that Ron's paper is "must reading" for DU alarmists. However, 
essentially none of these alarmists are going to read this paper -- or if 
they did by chance read it, their prejudices would blind them to accepting 
any of the science presented on the subject of U toxicity.

What needs to be done is for sponsoring organizations and/or the HPS to get 
Ron's paper out to nationally respected science writers [with a personal 
contact with some, and a cover letter related to Ron's paper for other]. 
These science writers will, if they pick up the content and realize the 
import of it, discuss his paper which will in turn reach hundreds of other 
science writers and hundreds of thousands to millions of readers in the 
general public. The scientific community needs to reach out in a way that 
reaches a broad public readership on important scientific issues. The key 
word is "OUTREACH".

I have had direct experience of just such an approach, demonstrating the 
incredible reach of the weekly Washington based publication Science News. 
Janet Raloff, a highly respected science writer with  Science News wrote a 
news note regarding a paper I presented at an Annual Meeting of the HPS 
about a national survey of Cs-137 in woodash from domestic woodstoves and 
fireplaces.

Raloff wrote a very brief news note  [a dozen lines or so which she titled: 
"Woodash --The Unregulated Radwaste"] about my just presented Cs-137 in 
Woodash HPS paper.

This 12 line news note in Science News led to countless dozens of print 
[front page newspaper articles, magazines], and radio reports about how 
trivial radioactive waste streams from nuclear plants and hospitals with 200 
pCi/kg or less of fission or activation products in some waste streams like 
nuclear facility septic sludge, cloth wipes and clothing from hospitals, 
etc. were being treated as radwaste, when woodash with 20,000 pCi/kg of 
fission product Cs-137 from bomb test fallout [plus higher levels of Sr-90 
generally] was being spread on fields as a fertilizer for organic gardening, 
both in home use and on commercial organic farms [with woodash from 
wood-fired power plants!

Raloff also enjoyed the subtitle to my paper on my national survey of Cs-137 
in woodash paper which read:  "Woodburners, and Organic Farmers: Is it time 
to kiss your ash goodbye?". This subtitle served as the proverbial "hook" 
that the media could not resist in covering the story. My paper showed that 
Cs-137 in woodash at 20,000 pCi/kg of ash led to doses over many years of 
use as a fertilizer that were at very most about 1 mrem/year, a de minimus 
level which even anti-nuclear publications like Organic Gardening felt 
forced to write were levels of no concern, or face reproach and embarassment 
for their having actively promoted use of woodash as a fertlilizer for many 
decades [i.e.: it would be their "ox getting gored!"]

Other excellent nationally respected science writers include Larry Spohn of 
the Albuquerque Tribune --but there are many dozens of science reporters who 
should and could be approached about the important issues raised by Ron 
Kathren's just-presented paper. This would likely lead to coverage of the U 
issue that would "undermine", as it were, the unscientific and alarmist 
attempts of many individuals and groups opposed to anything nuclear. The key 
word is OUTREACH to the general and scientific media. The only question is 
that if science writers do not pick up Ron's paper independently, how will 
it get to them.

Stewart Farber, MS Public Health
Consulting Scientist

Farber Technical Services
1285 Wood Ave.
Bridgeport, CT 06604
[203] 441-8433 [office]
email: radproject at sbcglobal.net

====================================
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Otto Raabe" <ograabe at ucdavis.edu>
To: <neildm at id.doe.gov>; <DUStory at yahoogroups.com>; <crispy_bird at yahoo.com>; 
<Mike.Brennan at DOH.WA.GOV>; <radsafe at radlab.nl>
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 4:59 PM
Subject: [ RadSafe ] The last word on DU


> July 11, 2007
>
> Ron Kathren's paper "Acute Toxicity of Uranium: "A Brief Review  with 
> Special Reference to Man" delivered today at the annual meeting of the 
> Health Physics Society in Portland, Oregon, (WAM-C.2) is must reading for 
> all the DU alarmists.
>
> After almost 200 years of toxicological study, the best description is 
> still the one given by Gmelin in 1824: "a feeble poison". Ron's review of 
> the literature that includes human exposures to soluble forms of uranium 
> reveals that "no human is known to have died from exposure to uranium." 
> Also, the radioactivity of uranium is not relevant to toxicity unless it 
> is at least 15% enriched in U-235.
>
> 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