RE: ALARA

[L_K_II_Les_Aldrich@RL.gov]

Jeff,

Some of us are stuck in a position where we have to support ALAA, and, as
the years go by, we are forced to decrease annual doses by mrem just because
its possible.  The use of the ALAA principle has long since stopped being
reasonable, and we are now in the "spend megabucks to save millirem" age.
Considering that the positive effects of low doses of radiation are so
obvious that those who are still clinging to the LNT theory have actually
invented the term "healthy worker effect" to try to explain away the
increased health of those of use who absorb small amounts of radiation every
year, continuing to push the exposure levels lower and lower seems to me to
be potentially undermining the health of nuclear workers.  

In one year, I took over 18 rem medical exposure.  The only effect I saw was
an accurate diagnosis of a medical problem and implementation of a program
to resolve the problem.  Since a rem is a rem is a rem, I personally see no
negative effect to an individual from low rem doses of radiation (though I
don't recommend that level for every member of the general population).  

There are a lot of places we could more effectively benefit society with the
multi-millions of dollars we're spending trying to reduce a worker's dose
this year to 90 mrem when it was only 100 mrem last year.  Heart disease
research, stop-smoking programs, and defensive driver training are three
that come immediately to mind.

If I drop a hundred million drops of water on your head at one time, chances
are, you will not survive the event.  If I drop one drop of water each on a
hundred million heads, how many will be injured or killed? [Hint: the answer
is very, very close to zero].  To my knowledge, there is no observable
negative effect, and certainly no provable negative effect, from exposure to
low levels of ionizing radiation.

This is, of course, only my personal opinion.

Les Aldrich
l_k_ii_les_aldrich@rl.gov

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Jeffrey J Hoffman [SMTP:hoffmanj@dteenergy.com]
> Sent:	Monday, April 03, 2000 1:29 PM
> To:	Multiple recipients of list
> Subject:	ALARA
> 
> Can some of you actually be arguing against ALARA?  
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