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Re: Teaching the Doc's
Dear Carol,
IMHO, the problem is that the vast majority of the public (including
docs) actually believe that the EPA and other regulatory agencies make rules
that really are needed to protect their health and safety. If the public
knew and understood what was really going on, there might be mass lynching
of bureaucrats and politicians.
-----Original Message-----
From: carol marcus <csmarcus@ucla.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Saturday, July 22, 2000 4:14 PM
Subject: Re: Teaching the Doc's
>At 02:36 PM 7/22/00 -0500, you wrote:
>>This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
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>> Regarding suggestions that the health physics community play a role =
>>in educating physicians on radiation effects, I wonder just what we =
>>should teach them? It is my personal opinion, for example, that the =
>>consequences of a few diagnostic x-rays, or any other radiation exposure =
>> within the range of variation of natural background (<100 mrem/yr) =
>>should be considered trivial and never be the reason to justify =
>>termination of pregnancy. I think the widespread practice of abortions =
>>in Europe following Chernobyl was an abomination
>> Yet, how can I tell people that this is the case, when official =
>>agencies of the U.S. government have established rules (i.e. 15 =
>>mrem/yr cleanup levels, 4 mrem/yr drinking water standards, ALARA, etc. =
>>) requiring the expenditure of vast sums of money to avoid similar =
>>low-level exposures. If such low exposure levels were trivial, why would =
>>such restrictions be required?
>>
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>><!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">
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>><HEAD>
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>><META content=3D'"MSHTML 4.72.3110.7"' name=3DGENERATOR>
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>><DIV><FONT color=3D#000000> Regarding suggestions that =
>>the=20
>>health physics community play a role in educating physicians on =
>>radiation=20
>>effects, I wonder just what we should teach them? It is my personal =
>>opinion, for=20
>>example, that the consequences of a few diagnostic x-rays, or any other=20
>>radiation exposure within the range of variation of natural =
>>background=20
>>(<100 mrem/yr) should be considered trivial and never be the =
>>reason to=20
>>justify termination of pregnancy. I think the widespread practice of =
>>abortions=20
>>in Europe following Chernobyl was an abomination</FONT></DIV>
>><DIV><FONT color=3D#000000> Yet, how can I tell people =
>>that this=20
>>is the case, when official agencies of the U.S. government =
>>have=20
>>established rules (i.e. 15 mrem/yr cleanup levels, 4 mrem/yr =
>>drinking=20
>>water standards, ALARA, etc. ) requiring the expenditure of vast sums of =
>>money=20
>>to avoid similar low-level exposures. If such low exposure levels were =
>>trivial,=20
>>why would such restrictions be required?</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>
>>
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>>The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
>>information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html
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>
>
>Dear Jerry:
>
>Go ahead and tell them anyway. When I teach doc and techs about NRC and
EPA
>requirements, I teach them how to analyze how scientifically worthless and
>self-serving they are. Most docs assume that there is some scientific
basis
>for these requirements. When I explain that there aren't any (and for the
>"medical" program this is certainly true), that's a few more educated
>sceptics added to the army.
>
>Ciao, Carol
>
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information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html