Re: Suggestions? and MSC story to be on CBS- Misuse of language

[Bernard L Cohen <blc+@pitt.edu>]

On Mon, 10 Jan 2000 RADPROJECT@aol.com wrote:
> When language is misused to the extent it commonly is in societal and media 
> reporting, one has crossed into a very dangerous area. George Orwell warned 
> about "The Misuse [or Corruption]  of Language" in a very insightful essay 
> over 40 years ago,  and further warned in his book "1984" about the meaning 
> of words being manipulated to mean whatever some self-serving ministry of 
> information wanted them to mean [i.e.: black-white].
> 
> The word "disaster" has some implicit meaning in terms of magnitude of injury 
> or loss that should not just be glossed over by equating one death to 
> thousands of deaths in other cases, because the one death in an industrial 
> accident involves radioactive material. 
> 
> While the loss of even one person in an accident is tragic,  I believe it not 
> proper to casually equate it to disasters in which thousands died. This  is a 
> corruption of language and thought that should not be tolerated, since it 
> crosses over into propaganda.


	A copy of the letter I sent to Reuters follows:

							January 7, 2000
Mr. Steven Jukes, Editor
Reuters News Agency
1333 H St., NW
Washington, DC

Dear Mr. Jukes:
	I am writing to point out a gross misrepresentation in a Reuters
Dispatch from London, Dec. 31. It listed the 27 worst disasters of 1999,
for each event giving the date and the number of deaths resulting. The
latter varied from 20 to 30,000 deaths. However, there was one exception
to this pattern, the Sept. 30 nuclear accident in Japan for which there
were no deaths listed; it stated only that "69 people were exposed to
radiation".
	This treatment implies that being exposed to radiation is in some
sense equivalent to being killed. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The exposures of these 69 people were so small that none of them is
expected to be harmed in any way; there is only a small probability that
as many as one of them will eventually develop cancer as a result.
Actually, their exposures were lower than those received by millions of
Americans every year due to radon in their homes.
	The only important harm to human health was to the three workers
whose mistake caused the accident, one of whom eventually died. The other
two suffered injuries from which they have recovered.
	In summary, this was an industrial accident that killed one worker
and injured two others. How does this deserve being included on a list of
the years worst disasters? Industrial accidents kill 1800 workers per year
in Japan, and several times that number in U.S.. Why aren't these
thousands of other accidents on your list?
								Sincerely

> 
Bernard L. Cohen
Physics Dept.
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Tel: (412)624-9245
Fax: (412)624-9163
e-mail: blc+@pitt.edu

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