Re: Mindless nuclear hysteria? Welcome exceptions to media bias

["Ted Rockwell" <tedrock@cpcug.org>]

Thanks for this thoughtful story.  I think we in the nuclear industry have
to face up to the fact that when we tell people that there is no safe level
of radiation (unlike all other hazards in the world, that I know of), we've
got to assume that reporters will report it so, and the public will be
scared stiff of it.

People ask me, "How can we get our message across to the public?"
I reply, "You've gotten it across very well.  They're all scare silly."

Remember that the head nuclear advocate in the US, with no regulatory
responsibility, namely the Secretary of Energy, has told the world that,
during the next few years, he is going to give his contractor workers 250 to
700 cases of radiation-induced cancer, of which 60% will be lethal.  These
are presumably people who are following all the rules.  Furthermore, he
says, we've all known this all along and been lying about it.

What do you expect reporters to write?  How do you expect the public to
react to such statements?

Some of us have been trying to get our professional societies and individual
scientists to make simple statements that low-level radiation is NOT harmful
and that scientific evidence of this fact is being ignored in setting
policy.  But they won't.  [Wouldn't want to offend the Secretary.]  If
someone wants to challenge this evidence scientifically, that would be fine.
But it should not be ignored.

So we're taking it to court, where we will get an answer.  You might then
have a chance to tell reporters what you think of the question.

Ted Rockwell

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