Re: 1.3 billion people killed, maimed or diseased...-Rosalie

["ruth_weiner" <ruth_weiner@email.msn.com>]

This is a little bit off-topic, but may be of interest.  If you all think
it's off-topic, tell me and I won't follow up.  The reason I raised my
question about Rosalie Bertell in the first place is that she is an example
(perhaps extreme) of the "career path" of a number of anti-nuclear
activists.  John Gofman is another well-known example. Since I am getting
pretty old, I am personally acquainted with others who are not so well-known
to the public (I don't like naming names).  These are people with perfectly
respectable graduate degrees in a science or mathematics, who even published
solid peer-reviewed papers early in their careers and established
credibility for themselves.  Then at some point their speeches and
utterances start to go haywire and they become anti-nuke "heroes."   Part of
this is understandable.  I was there, asking questions of nuclear utilities
before it became chic to do so (and the utilities were not exactly honest or
forthcoming in the 1960s and 70s), and public and press attention are
extremely seductive.  Moreover, when the truth no longer serves the
political purpose of the organizations supporting you (which happened with
me and the Sierra Club in 1985-86) the organizations use pretty nasty
tactics try to shut you up (e.g., threatening phone calls).   I know from
personal experience that it's hard to admit (let alone in public) that you
were wrong or exaggerated, and it's hard to be excluded.  I would be
interested, though, to know what these people are thinking when they stop
being rational.  This is a rhetorical question -- I really don't think
anyone knows.

Ruth Weiner
ruth_weiner@msn.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Otto G. Raabe <ograabe@ucdavis.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Wednesday, June 21, 2000 5:45 AM
Subject: Re: 1.3 billion people killed, maimed or diseased...-Rosalie


>June 21, 2000
>Davis, CA
>
>I sat next to Rosalie Bertell at a U.S. Senate committee hearing in 1998
>where we were both testifying as scientific experts. (Steve Wing was two
>seats away.) She spend more than her allotted time telling the Senators
>about her views of DNA damage from ionizing radiation, but she obviously is
>not a scientist and her testimony was mostly anti-nuclear activist
>nonsense. She may have studied "biometry" but she seems to think she is an
>expert on radiation effects. She objected when I testified that the typical
>American receives a lifetime whole-body-equivalent radiation dose of about
>20 rem from natural sources, and seemed to have difficulty multiplying 0.3
>rem per year times 70 years.
>
>Otto
> *****************************************************
> Prof. Otto G. Raabe, Ph.D., CHP
> Institute of Toxicology & Environmental Health (ITEH)
> (Street Address: Bldg. 3792, Old Davis Road)
> University of California, Davis, CA 95616
> E-Mail: ograabe@ucdavis.edu
> Phone:(530) 752-7754, FAX:(530) 758-6140
> *****************************************************
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