RE: Rosalie Bertell

["Franta, Jaroslav" <frantaj@aecl.ca>]

You wrote on Monday July 10, 2000 7:35 PM

> The X-Files has more credibility.
<><><><><><><><><>
Comment:

The book review by A. Cottrell  of Bertell's NO IMMEDIATE DANGER ( "Between
fact and passion," NATURE, Vol. 316, p. 583, 15 Aug. 1985 ) called her work
an unscientific tirade and manifesto, written "with the set mind of the
zealot... too obsessive to be convincing." On page 47 of her book Bertell
hints at how one may arrive at the kind of bizarre conclusions she does :
"data accumulated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not give the desired
answers."

In a videotaped seminar at Concordia University (Montreal) on 12 March 1986,
Bertell showed a color slide of our blue planet Earth as photographed by a
spacecraft "in 1972," and commented in all seriousness that "we can't get
one [photograph] like that anymore because the Earth today is brown-looking"
(and the audience seems to have bought it, like they do all her anti-nuke
stuff).

But Bertell is generally much more cautious about such obvious gaffes in her
published articles - miserably few though there are, and mostly in the form
of letters. Some years back I checked in the Science Citation Index listings
for Bertell and found the following - either by, or replying to RB :

Bertell, R., "Physicians rally against the threat of a nuclear epidemic,"
CMA Journal (Canadian Medical Association), Vol. 126, 15 Feb. 1982.

Marko, A.M. and Robertson, J.A.L., "Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories," CMA
Journal, Vol. 126, Feb. 1982.

Bertell, R., "The Nuclear Worker and Ionizing Radiation," American
Industrial Hygiene Association Journal, 40:395 1979.

Wilson, R., "More on Ionizing Radiation,"  American Industrial Hygiene
Association Journal, 41:74 1980.

Ginevan, M.E., "Reply to Bertell" and "Nonlymphatic Leukemias and Adult
Exposure to Diagnostic X-Rays: The Evidence Reconsidered," HEALTH PHYSICS,
Vol. 41, Aug. 1981, pp. 422, 423 and Vol. 38, Feb. 1980, pp. 129-138.

[ the CMA Journal has an archive at http://www.cma.ca/cmaj/back.htm , but it
only goes back to Jan. 1995, and gives mostly just titles & abstracts... ]
- - - - - - -

The Canadian House of Commons Debates record for December 8, 1986 (p. 1870)
contains the following entry (verbatim) :

STATUS OF WOMEN
DR. ROSALIE BERTELL -- RECOGNITION OF WORK FOR HUMANITY

Miss Aideen Nicholson (Trinity) :
Mr. Speaker, I am sure all Members of the House of Commons will be pleased
to know that Dr. Rosalie Bertell is being honoured today in the Swedish
Houses of Parliament with the Right Livelihood Award which is also known as
the alternative Nobel Prize.

A scholar, a scientist, a member of the Order of Grey Nuns, an author, an
activist, and currently Director of Research at the International Institute
of Concern for Public Health, Sister Rosalie has devoted her energies and
considerable abilities to working for humanity and against the escalation
and development of nuclear weapons and nuclear power. In 1986, the
International Year of peace, it is especially fitting that the international
community has chosen to honour Dr. Rosalie Bertell who has spent decades of
her life in a dauntless and uncompromising crusade for truth and peace.
- - - - - -

Comment: so which House of Parliament was more idiotic on Dec. 8 1986 - the
Canadian one or the Swedish one ?

Jaro



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