Re: Uranium Miners' Compensation

["D. Kosloff" <dkosloff@ncweb.com>]

-snip, snip-
> Who is influencing Richardson?

"He's driven about this, he's very passionate about it. He wants to get
something done before he leaves office," said Richard Miller, a Washington,
D.C.-based policy analyst for the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and
Energy Union.
 Richardson's move, Miller is convinced, "is not based on optics" -- D.C.
beltway-speak for political acts richer in image enhancement than substance.
"He's sincere. This particular crusade was not poll-tested and
focus-grouped."

Follow the votes.  Voting is based primarily on emotion and individual
personal benefit.  The art of politics is to use other people's money to
provide benefits and satisfy the emotions of prosepctive voters.   There is
no political downside to Mr. Richardson's actions.  He is merely going with
his basic political instinct,  if someone is crying in front of you and you
can make them feel good by giving them other people's money, why worry about
logic and scientific method.   Rational thought and scientific method are
the results of mental discipline, not natural inclination.

Remember, compensation is going to be with government money, that way the
taxpayers won't be burdened with it  (adaptation of an actual quote form an
local elected official on another issue).  There will be no crowds of
taxpayers chanting for Richardson's head for giving government money to
widows and orphans.   Historians will not be waiting in line to write books
about how foolish Richardson (or anyone else) was with other people's money.

"It's a republic, if you can keep it."  Benjamin Franklin.  Thank goodness,
scientists and engineers won't have to dirty their hands by becoming
involved with politics and the hoi polloi.

Don Kosoff mailto:dkosloff@ncweb.com
2910 Main St, Perry OH 44081

----- Original Message -----
From: Steven Dapra <sjd@iolnm.net>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2000 11:08 PM
Subject: Uranium Miners' Compensation


> Feb. 14
>
> Interesting article in the Albuquerque (NM) Journal (North edition;
> 2-13-00) about Bill Richardson's views on miner compensation.  (Article
> will probably be unavailable via link after 2-15.)
>
> The link is
>
> <http://www.abqjournal.com/news/8news02-13-00.htm>
>
>
> "The National Institutes of Health took over studies of DOE weapons
> workers in the early 1990s. That switch was fueled in part by "Dead
> Reckoning: A Critical Review of the Department of Energy's Epidemiologic
> Research," a study published in 1992 by Physicians for Social
> Responsibility, a national nuclear-disarmament and environmental group.
..
> . .
>
> "A leading contributor to "Dead Reckoning" was David Michaels, an
> epidemiologist and Geiger colleague at CUNY. He took a leave of absence a
> year ago to become Richardson's assistant secretary for environment,
safety
> and health."  (Geiger is H. Jack Geiger, study co-author)
>
> Same article; different study, but a related topic:
>
> "As the White House and Congress agreed on legislation to compensate
> beryllium workers, Richardson persuaded President Clinton to order a
> sweeping study of job-related illness in the weapons complex and possible
> ways to compensate other ailing workers.
>
> "The study is due out in March. Early drafts report that workers are at
> increased risk of illness from radiation and chemical exposures at work.
> Congress may demand harder evidence, but Richardson already is convinced."
>
> Richardson is convinced before the study is released.  Should we have
> expected that?
>
> Steven Dapra
> sdj@iolnm.net
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