[ RadSafe ] Support Radon Mine but mention "kill" scientist make nosense, help!

[Clayton J Bradt]

I guess it falls upon me to sort this out. There is nothing worse than 
having to explain your own jokes. I know because I seem to have to do it 
quite often.

On May 2, I originally posted a link to Hellen Caldicott's Op-Ed piece in 
the NY Times in which she compared the practice of "irresponsible" (my 
term) physicists who play down the dangers of radiation while "noble" 
(again, my term) physicians like herself who better understand the dangers 
of radiation. Physicians are much more caring than physicists and can be 
trusted to tell the truth about  radiation.   As a health physicist, I 
might have taken umbrage at Dr. Caldicott's slur against my profession, 
but her piece was so ridiculous on its face that I decided to play along 
instead.  After the link I added the sentence; "Stop me before I kill 
again!" ironically referring to myself as if I were an evil physicist 
responsible for the deaths of untold millions of innocents.  The phrase 
"Stop me before I kill again!" comes (in a somewhat altered form) from a 
news story I recall about one of Ronald Reagan's speeches or news 
conferences in which he stated that trees kill more people 
than....something or other - maybe guns or nuclear bombs - I don't recall. 
Any way, the next day someone had put a sign on a tree at the site of 
Reagan's next campaign appearance that read "Cut me down before I kill 
again!"  The phrase seemed an apt response to Caldicott's equally stupid 
remarks.

At no time in no way have I ever advocated violence against anyone. 
Killing is wrong and if my words have persuaded anyone to kill somebody 
else I will feel really, really bad.  I sincerely apologize to all those 
whom I have offended. I am heartily sorry for my actions and will strive 
to live a better life in the future!

Now, on the same day as the above post I also posted a serious question 
regarding the induction of cancer by infectious agents such as viruses. It 
is certainly ironic that the Caldicott post has received such an 
overwhelming response while not one has addressed this.  Maybe it is such 
a  stupid idea that it doesn't deserve comment. I can live with that.
I repeat it below for convenience of the reader:


The following web page lists several viruses that are believed to cause 
some cancers of various types:

http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/CancerCauses/OtherCarcinogens/InfectiousAgents/InfectiousAgentsandCancer/infectious-agents-and-cancer-viruses


I am not a cancer researcher or even a biologist, just a health physicist 
(an oxymoron to some, apparently).  Perhaps someone out there could 
enlighten me about the following:

In order to do the things that any cell has to do to viable and to 
proliferate, very specific genetic information must remain intact within 
cancer cells.  Simultaneously, certain specific genes must be turned on or 

off in order for these cells to evade the multilevel control mechanisms 
which have evolved specifically to prevent damaged cells from surviving. I 

find it difficult to believe that  merely random rearrangements of base 
pairs due to radiation damage and mis-repair could result in these very 
specific changes in a cancer cell's genetic make up.  A billion monkeys 
with typewriters will not come up with "King Lear" over the life-time of 
the universe.  But perhaps a few thousand monkeys with word processors 
upon which the individual pages of "King Lear" are stored in random order 
might be able to reproduce the work over the course of a single human life 

time. 

Prerecorded gene sequences written and rewritten over a billion years of 
viral evolution could be spliced into the DNA of somatic cells which would 

then turn off the control mechanisms and allow the cells to proliferate. 
Since apparently, a number of viruses are believed to cause some cancers, 
why should we not concluded that all cancers are the result of some 
infectious agent? 


Clayton J. Bradt
dutchbradt at hughes.net
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