[ RadSafe ] Radiation exposure and the power of zero By Jeffrey Patterson | 26 April 2011

[Steven Dapra]

May 6

         Try this link.  It might work better.

http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/op-eds/radiation-exposure-and-the-power-of-zero

         The article sounds more like an editorial than anything 
else, and it is the standard no-nuke rubbish.  Note the author's 
(Jeffrey Patterson) biography adjacent to the editorial:

"He is the immediate past president of the Physicians for Social 
Responsibility and has also been active in the International 
Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War."  For perspective, 
Helen Caldicott is a founder or co-founder of PSR.

         Patterson wrote:

"Sentinel work by Alice Stewart, a physician and epidemiologist who 
studied the effects of radiation on health, revealed that even one 
x-ray before birth could increase a child's chances of getting leukemia."

         I'm reasonably certain that Alice Stewart was not an 
epidemiologist.  Is it true that a mere one x-ray can increase a 
child's risk of getting leukemia?  Technically, perhaps so --- by an 
infinitesimal amount.  This sounds more like calculating than it does 
measuring.

         Patterson bemoans the "the cover-up of the Kyshtym disaster 
by the US and the Soviet Union, and the failure to inform the general 
public of the Chernobyl crisis during the first three days that it 
was happening."  How could the US cover up the Kyshtym 
"disaster"?  That's a Russian name.  How could the US have covered up 
something that happened in the USSR?  The failure to inform the 
general public about Chernobyl stems from the pathological secrecy of 
the Soviet Union, and has nothing to do with the safety (or dangers) 
of nuclear power.

         The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is "credible" among 
its readers, and among no-nukers and peaceniks.

         Finally, merely because Albert Einstein says something that 
does not make it true.

Steven Dapra


At 12:03 PM 5/5/2011, you wrote:
>http://www.(thebulletin).org/web-edition/op-eds/radiation-exposure-and-the-power-of-zero
>(thebulletin) in parentheses to eliminate any search engine benefit .
>
>I am wondering what the opinion among the physicists is regarding the
>conclusion of this article. It is different from that which I was taught.
>Especially the last paragraph:
>
>We must choose to halt this process. To do this we need to quickly abolish
> > all nuclear weapons, and make a dramatic and rapid retreat from the use of
> > nuclear power to generate electricity. Only then will we 
> demonstrate that we
> > recognize and appreciate the true meaning of Einstein's prophetic words:
> > "The splitting of the atom has changed everything save our mode 
> of thinking.
> > Thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe."
> >
>
>I realize he is just a physician but is the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
>even credible???