[ RadSafe ] Agreeing with Franz on "dogma"

Thu Aug 20 11:50:03 CDT 2015

As a Health Physicist for 44 years, our role is to ensure a safe radiation environment work place, not just at high dose/dose rates, but at any dose/dose rate. This includes ensuring that the facility, NPP, University or Medical Institution meets all applicable regulations, license conditions, public dose, etc. 

Regards,

Sandy
Sent from my iPhone

> On Aug 20, 2015, at 9:36 AM, Joseph Preisig <jrpnj01 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Radsafe,
> 
>     Nuclear reactors, when operated properly and when they are not
> being hit by a tsunami or a large/great earthquake, are inherently
> safe.  They are designed to be safe.  They operate well and provide
> useful amounts of power.  There is risk in walking down the street.
> Is it safe???  (question is asked in the movie the Marathon Man)....
>     Why are we always worried about LNT and the low dose end of the
> curve???  Isn't the health physicist's job at higher doses/dose
> rates????
>     Joe Preisig
> 
> 
> 
>> On 8/20/15, Bill Prestwich <prestwic at mcmaster.ca> wrote:
>> I think it is possible to expose the falseness in the anti-nuclear movement
>> within the LNT approach as used by regulators.  The argument used by this
>> movement is that science has shown no level of radiation is safe. In the
>> first place there is no scientific definition of safe. What the opponents
>> of
>> nuclear power are claiming is that safe is defined as a process that has
>> zero probability of harm. With that definition almost nothing is safe. The
>> reply to these people is that they are claiming that a probability of one
>> in
>> a trillion that an action could cause some harm means that action should be
>> abolished. Instead I think one could argue that the LNT is over restricting
>> and hence overly careful in protecting the public.
>> 
>> Bill Prestwich
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: radsafe-bounces at agni.phys.iit.edu
>> [mailto:radsafe-bounces at agni.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of KARAM, PHILIP
>> Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2015 2:41 PM
>> To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
>> Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Agreeing with Franz on "dogma"
>> 
>> I don't think that the word "dogma" is at all derisive in and of itself. In
>> biochem we learned the "central dogma of molecular biology" (which you can
>> find in any number of textbooks in precisely that phrasing), which was
>> DNA-RNA-protein. In Sunday school (Catholic) we learned a number of dogmas
>> of the Catholic Church. Used properly, the word is descriptive, not loaded.
>> 
>> In the case of LNT, the use of the word dogma is certainly appropriate in a
>> number of cases.
>> 
>> -As Franz pointed out, it is NOT appropriate for the scientific debate,
>> which continues to be lively.
>> -In the regulatory realm (and in the area of ALARA), LNT certainly has
>> become dogma in the sense that it is the central belief behind the way that
>> regulations are written and ALARA is practiced - and if LNT were to be
>> shown
>> to be false then we might well have to re-think the way that we practice
>> ALARA as well as the way we regulate.
>> -And among the anti-nuclear and anti-radiation activists LNT is most
>> certainly dogma in that it is virtually the only argument they use to
>> demand
>> that all reactors be shut down and all use of radiation that can expose the
>> public be banned - if LNT is shown to be false then their central argument
>> crumbles to the ground.
>> 
>> The word itself is neither positive nor negative - it is simply
>> descriptive.
>> But, like the word "evolution," it has come to mean more to some than ought
>> to be the case.
>> 
>> Andy
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
>> [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Peter Crane
>> Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2015 2:02 PM
>> To: RADSAFE
>> Subject: [ RadSafe ] Agreeing with Franz on "dogma"
>> 
>> It's a pleasure to be able to agree with Franz for once. This use of loaded
>> words such as "dogma" and "cult" to denigrate the LNT (and, on the other
>> side, the hormesis theory) adds nothing to the debate. The propagandistic
>> purpose is too obvious. Maybe that's OK if you are just preaching to the
>> choir, since you are not out to change any minds, but trying to convert
>> opponents by calling them cultists following a dogma? It doesn't work.
>> 
>> I'd love to know more about infighting in the Austrian bureaucracy, Franz.
>> I
>> thought the watchword there was Schlamperei, of taking things easy and not
>> too seriously, but I suppose I'm forgetting my Kafka, plus the golden rule
>> of organizations -- governmental, academic, etc. -- that the smaller the
>> stakes, the more vicious the internal battles can be. By the way, if you
>> know Bad Ischl, Villa Rothstein, my great-grand-uncle's summer home, was
>> where my grandmother played as a child, back around 1901-1903. Das gibt's
>> nur einmal, das kommt nicht wieder....
>> 
>> -- Peter Crane, Seattle
>> NRC Counsel for Special Projects (retired)
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