Re: Death Rate

[Bob Flood <bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

>What an interesting question. This seems to imply that nuclear does kill
>some people...
>I guess my answer remains "I don't know". So go ahead and give it a try.

Is this a preconceived notion? Your answer seems to presume that any death
associated with a nuclear plant would be radiation related. When the brake
on the polar crane at Browns Ferry failed several years ago, the fatality
the falling boom caused wasn't a function of the worker's dose.

One of the common characteristics you will find among avid anti-radiation
activists is a desire to ignore the subject of death from causes other than
radiation, as if radiation is a huge cause of death that requires attention.
When people are really dying in switchyard accidents and pipeline exposions
and sinking tankers, etc, and we are all still arguing about whether ANYONE
has been killed in the US by radiation from a nuclear plant, shouldn't our
priorities deserve an evaluation? Why is so much money and human effort be
expended on radiation instead of these other causes of real, verifiable
deaths?
============================
Bob Flood
Dosimetry Group Leader
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
bflood@slac.stanford.edu


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