Re: Death Rate

[Ernesto_Faillace@notes.ymp.gov]

Perhaps to most people, the "FEAR of death" is greater than death itself.  Thus
the fact that hypothetical deaths may occur, not tangible, enumerable deaths, is
more frightening and thus leads to greater concerns with nuclear power than with
other forms of power.  After all, that one in a million persons may be myself
(with my luck in the lottery....)!  Proof of this (in a more "positive"
direction) is the recent lottery jackpot that attracted so many millions of
people that may under other circumstances be considered rational (in this case
the odds of "winning" are probably even less than one in a million).  Hard to
fight such inherently irrational human emotions.

Ernesto Faillace CHP
efaillace@earthlink.net




Bob Flood <bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU> on 05/09/2000 08:41:27 PM

Please respond to radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu

To:   Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
cc:    (bcc: Ernesto Faillace/YM/RWDOE)

Subject:  Re: Death Rate


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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