RE: FACTS ABOUT TENNESSEE ILLNESSES

["Pollan, Paul B." <PBPOLLAN@southernco.com>]

My dear Mr. Savin, what solid proof do the courts and attorneys have that
the workers obtained their illnesses through their work with radioactive
materials?  Should enormous payouts be made, on the backs of taxpayers like
you and me, on statistical probabilities?  Statistics might work if one was
to question the probability of doors falling off a moving automobile per a
certain total number of automobiles.  Statistics may also suffice for
"proving" that a certain number of people will fall out of the cars, get
injured, and die from those automobiles that did have the doors fall off
while the automobiles were moving.  Chemicals I can easily understand, since
there is a higher statistical probability that toxic outputs are possible
from mixing of incompatible chemicals than falling out of moving automobiles
that had their doors fall off.

What is sad about this is that there are those who choose to remain ignorant
on the actual damage caused by ionizing radiation; a subject that has been
one of the most extensively studied topics known.  The statistical
probabilities of damage are far lower than falling out of the aforementioned
moving automobile with defective doors.  As I am sure you have learned in
your research, the major culprit of known radiation damage is from high
doses over a short period of time.  Even using the BEIR V report as a
"statistical probability" of chronic radiation damage, there is less than
little to worry about.  

It is amazing that there are all kinds of highly educated people living in
Oak Ridge who are fully aware of the biological effects of ionizing
radiation, the statistical probabilities, the kind and amount of
"background" radiation eminating from the surrounding forests, wildlife, and
ponds, and yet are not afraid to live, work, and raise a family there.  Of
course, I could continue smoking cigarettes, develop lung cancer, become a
"sick worker" and claim that it came from working in a nuclear power plant.
If this is the case, I would like to retain your services, esquire, to
'milk' the propaganda for all it's worth.  The people on the (our) list are
not anti-worker and pro-company management, they (we) just know better. 

As far the media is concerned, in my neck of the woods, we have very good
communication with the media.  Unfortunately, we don't have the ability to
proof-read the copy before it is printed or broadcast.  Errors abound in
almost all articles written by the 'unlearned' regarding nuclear power,
nuclear waste, and just about anything else dealing with the term "nuclear".
It is not malicious on the part of the media, I would hope, just ignorance.
Any clarification is perceived by the public as everything but the truth.
This is particularly true of any facility run by "the Government".  Our
Government would never deceive or lie to you, now would it? ;-).  [In case
you missed the sarcasm].  It would be impossible to communicate what has
been learned of ionizing radiation to the general public in a form that
wouldn't get twisted, disbelieved, and otherwise permutated to the point
that one would throw up their hands and walk away shaking their heads.  This
is partially our fault.  The Government had kept atomic issues secret, and
the public was not to know anything about atomic energy except what was seen
in Japan when the two bombs were dropped.  Naturally, human nature is to be
wary of anybody with one hand out and one hand behind their back.  I cannot
blame anyone for having a fear of nuclear energy, nuclear medicine, etc.
since the only pictures the common person has is that of a mushroom cloud.
I just wish there were less people to try to capitalize (sound familiar?) on
misguided fears and probabilities, and more people with solid reputations
trying to dispel those irrational fears.  I personally encourage your
differing opinion.  It makes for interesting reading. ;-)  

"One can only be ignorant once.  After one is enlightened and makes the same
error, it is stupidity." - unknown

My own opinions only.  Also with kindest regards, 

Paul B. Pollan, RRPT
email:  pbpollan@southernco.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	EASlavin@aol.com [SMTP:EASlavin@aol.com]
> Sent:	Thursday, April 06, 2000 8:28 AM
> To:	Multiple recipients of list
> Subject:	Re: FACTS ABOUT TENNESSEE ILLNESSES
> 
> Good morning:
> 
> Please allow me to introduce myself.  I am an attorney licensed in
> Tennessee 
> and am honored to represent Oak Ridge and other environmental and nulear 
> weapons "whistleblower" workers.  When history is written, IMHO the
> Michael 
> Fumentos of this world will be remembered as bitter partisans who knew not
> 
> the law, and who had contempt for both science and human rights.  Ms.
> Cheryll 
> Dyer makes very good points in her post.  DOE hostility to the sick
> workers 
> and Nashville Tennessean investigation was also indulged in by Tennessee 
> state officials, Lockheed Martin managers, and other "professionals" on
> this 
> list.  I've read and analyzed your listserv postings of the last several 
> years on the subject, and shared some of them with the sick workers in Oak
> 
> Ridge.  
> 
> It seems that at least a vocal minority of radiation protection personnel 
> exhibit an almost Manichean "us-against-them" mentality.  They display 
> instant hostility to all news media coverage and public scrutiny of
> nuclear 
> and environmental issues.  This attitude does not contribute to radiation 
> protection.  It does not create understanding.    It does not fulfill your
> 
> profession's noble goal of saving human lives from horrible painful cancer
> 
> deaths.
> 
> Some of your you who write seem extremely unhappy -- even wildly indignant
> 
> about nearly everything critical, questioning or skeptical about radiation
> 
> exposures.  This is not thought, it is anger.  This anger is misplaced.
> This 
> anger is unfair.  This anger does not help protect the people who do all
> the 
> working, the breathing and the dying in contaminated places like K-25.  
> 
> Some of you instantly seize on each new report of worker concerns as 
> "evidence" that "everyone's out to get US."  Well, who the heck is "US," 
> anyway?  Do y'all want to be part of the solution or part of the problem?
> 
> Since some of you see this as an adversarial, us-against-them proposition,
> as 
> the old labor song said, just "whose side are you on" -- management's or
> the 
> sick workers?  Is that written in a Health Physics or Radiation Protection
> 
> textbook somewhere?
> 
> Isn't the idea of radiation protection was to protect worker safety,
> rather 
> than industry reputations and corporate liability?  I guess that I am
> being 
> naive.    No one on this list had anything good to say about the Nashville
> 
> Tennessean articles.  No one wrote that the questions, concerns and issues
> 
> raised were legitimate.  No one wrote to say that independent
> investigations 
> were need.    No one wrote to say that anything could be improved, changed
> or 
> modified at K-25. Where is you compassion?
> 
> Although DOE and its contractor had planned to take biological samples of 
> K-25 workers, to this day, no one has been tested.  Wonder why?
> Meanwhile, 
> thousands of workers in Oak Ridge work in ancient, radiologically and 
> chemically contaminated buildings.  DOE has never answered my questions
> about 
> how many workers in Oak Ridge workers work in contaminated buildings.  The
> 
> answer is thousands.
> 
> ALARA principles would have counseled against locating the Oak Ridge TSCA 
> Incinerator -- the Nation's first radioative and toxic waste incinerator
> -- 
> in the midst of ridge and valley topography with complex microclimates
> that 
> have hardly been studied yet, near two enormous polluting TVA coal-fired 
> powerplants, in the midst of a Superfund site with 4.2 million pounds of 
> mercury, over 13 million cubic feet of radioactive waste (enough to fill
> in 
> Neyland Stadium at the University of Tennessee), and what the State of 
> Tennessee has called a "witches' brew" of other hazardous materials.  Yet 
> that is exactly what DOE did.  Why?  Who spoke out against it at the time?
> 
> Who said, we need to know more first?  Who said study the microclimates.
> Who 
> out there just said "whoa"?  In fact, although NOAA had an ambitious
> project 
> to study the microclimates with ten towers around Oak Ridge, DOE preferred
> 
> less data at higher cost.
> 
> ALARA principles would also appear to dictate that thousands of office and
> 
> lab workers not work in the midst of a giant Superfund site --
> particularly 
> not one where decontamination and decomissioning of what was once the
> world's 
> largest building is taking place.  Who is advocating the need to build new
> 
> office buildings to house K-25 workers, away from the decontamination and 
> decommissioning work?
> 
> The entire tone of your listserv discussion about sick Oak Ridge is all
> too 
> reminiscent of that of the tatterdemalion Oak Ridge City Council, which is
> in 
> deep denial.  The City of Oak Ridge is now wasting money on TV
> advertisements 
> with bucolic scences.  Meanwhile, toward the sick workers, Oak Ridge has 
> shown condescension and derision, wishing the sick workers would go away
> or 
> just die off.  They're not going away.  It's their country.  It's their
> boat. 
>  They have a right to rock it.  I reckon that they will continue to do so 
> until radiation and chemical protection, whistleblower protection and
> nuclear 
> workers' compensation become realities instead of platitudes.
> 
> Too much of DOE nuclear weapons plant management culture remains
> hierarchical 
> and authoritarian --  hostile and at best sadistic toward workers raising 
> environmental, safety and health concerns.  That culture and that
> hostility 
> can no longer endure.  As Dr. Karl Z. Morgan, the father of health physics
> 
> wrote before his death: "No society that severely restricts freedom of
> speech 
> will ultimately survive."
> 
> With kindest regards,
> 
> Edward A. Slavin, Jr.
> P.O. Box 3084
> St. Augustine, Florida 32085-3084
> (904) 471-7023
> (904) 471-9918 (fax)
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