[ RadSafe ] Risk and Shady Business

[edmond0033 at comcast.net]

Mike: 



Naturaly you won't find that in the news.  No matter what, everyone 'should' be afraid of 'deadly' radiation.  They would rather freeze us in the winter and swelt in the summer rather than have us build more Nuclear Reactors, drill for oil and construct more refineries.  Look at the slaughter on the highways and no one gets excited.  Look at how many people get thrown out of cars, because they didn't wear their seatbelts.  They make memorials of the spots where they were killed hitting trees that shouldn't have been there.  Some day, hopefully soon the people will wake up. 



Ed 






----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Stabin" <michael.g.stabin at Vanderbilt.Edu> 
To: radsafe at agni.phys.iit.edu 
Sent: Friday, March 5, 2010 3:06:07 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Risk and Shady Business 


Thanks, Cary. I note also that these are real children who strangled, there were real parents who attended real funerals. For these folks, the perception that these were harmless home fixtures were met with a harsh and different reality. I'll take a 0.004% chance of a theoretical death any day, make me a margarita wit dat tritium water, which I will cheerfully sip while inhaling radon in my living room. 

Mike 

Michael G. Stabin, PhD, CHP 
Associate Professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences 
Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences 
Vanderbilt University 
1161 21st Avenue South 
Nashville, TN 37232-2675 
Phone (615) 343-4628 
Fax   (615) 322-3764 
e-mail     michael.g.stabin at vanderbilt.edu 
internet   www.doseinfo-radar.com 
________________________________________ 
From: "Cary Renquist" <cary.renquist at ezag.com> 
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Risk and Shady Business 

Gov't Slow To Push For Safer Window Blinds 
http://j.mp/btIWvV 

Saw this article right after seeing another "tritium scare" headline... 

Brought to mind Sandy's comments on the general public's perception of 
risk. 

   Blinds and shades are some of the deadliest products subject to 
recalls announced by the safety 
   agency in the last 15 years. Yet the government has failed to require 
manufacturers to design 
   safer blinds and shades, relying instead on the industry to develop 
its own standards. 

   The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates about 500 children 
have strangled on the cords 
   of blinds and shades since the early 1980s, an average of about one 
child each month. 


If I remember the quick calc (NRC factors) I did back in Feb, I think 
that a person would need to 
drink 800 liters of water (2.2 liters/day) from the highest Vermont 
Yankee well in order to get a 
100 mrem (1 mSv) dose -- which *might* theoretically increase one's 
lifetime risk of dying from cancer 
by ~0.004%.  (Using the EPA's factors, 800 liters would be ~400 mrem (4 
mSv)) 

With the blinds, there is a direct link to the death of 1 child per 
month (on average) -- I'm sure that 
statistic is insignificant compared to child deaths in 
automobile-accidents/slips-n-falls/etc., but it is 
a statistic that could be significantly reduced with some simple 
engineering changes. 

Guess which one gets all the protesters and news coverage? 

Cary 
-- 
Cary.renquist at ezag.com 
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