Re: another intentional misuse

[William V Lipton <liptonw@dteenergy.com>]

RIGHT ON, Sandy!

I'm very disappointed in the typical, knee jerk response from Mr. Simmons.  I think that the
NRC will take whatever "ludicrous" actions are necessary to stop this, unless the research
hp community comes up with something.

You raise a very good point about most, if not all, of the perps being foreign students.
What seems to be another common theme is that most of the institutions involved seem to be
the prestigious, top tier groups, eg., MIT, NIH, Brown, and Columbia.  I am NOT in any way
advocating restrictions on foreign students.  What seems to be a root cause, here, is
stress.  There is definitely an extraordinary degree of stress on graduate students, post
docs, and junior faculty at these places - I've been there.  (I've heard that the suicide
rate at prestigious schools is significantly higher than among non-students of the same
age.)  The stress is probably even greater for foreign students, who are often away from
family and other sources of support.  For some, this stress seems to be expressed in
destructive behavior.

If the regulators step in, it will probably be a punitive, controlling approach.  Now's the
time for the institutions to try to address the root cause(s) of this problem.  Someone
should study this as an epidemic; that's why I've been using the word.  There may be common
factors which will suggest ways for nonobtrusive and effective intervention.  Simply saying
that it's impossible won't work.

The opinions expressed are strictly mine.
It's not about dose, it's about trust.

Bill Lipton
liptonw@dteenergy.com

Sandy Perle wrote:

> None of the reasons given comparing a power reactor license to a
> university research facility go to attacking the question at hand.
> The issue is individuals intentionally contaminating themselves and
> others. If they are intentional, there is absolutely nothing anyone
> can do to stop these ridiculous acts, other than assigning a large
> staff to ensure that all work is performed within their personal
> observation and presence at all times. The reason for a large staff
> is to prevent collusion between the monitored and the monitoree.
> This too would be even more ludicrous.
>
> An interesting statistic is that in every case, there was a foreign
> national involved. In some of the cases there was a "romantic"
> overtone. In another, self-inflicted (most recent). So, what does one
> do? No foreign students? Ludicrous. Baby-sitting police force?
> Ludicrous. Stop research? Ludicrous. Anyone think of requiring
> psychological testing (MMPI) as they do in power reactors?.
> Perhaps ludicrous as well, but worth consideration.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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