Re: congressional testimony by Steve Wing

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

Franz, I appreciate your message but will only comment on the part that
refers to Gofman.  Gofman was indeed a well-published and quite well
respected scientist (biochemist, I believe) and did work under AEC auspices.
In the approximate period 1955-1970, a great deal of secrecy as well as
hyperbole surrounded the entire nuclear endeavor in the U. S. and various
pronuclear agencies and organizations, including the AEC, did overstate the
benefits of nuclear power and publicly underestimate any adverse
environmental and health effects.  (I might point out that during this same
period automobile manufacturers claimed that there was nothing in car
exhaust because it was invisible.  They even put this on TV until the
Federal Trade Commission made them remove it.)

The AEC was both regulator and promoter of nuclear power, and was also the
agency responsible for nuclear weapons design and manufacture, so
inadvertently the whole business was surrounded by secrecy, and people who
asked questions -- perfectly straightforward questions -- about reactors and
safety and so on were looked at suspiciously.  In that atmosphere, Gofman
was initially something of a one-man "truth squad."  Unfortunately, he went
overboard in the other direction and even after the breakup of the AEC in
1974 and the release of a great deal of monitoring data by DOE in 1985, he
kept up the same old accusations against nuclear power, DOE, etc and
exaggerated the dangers of radiation increasingly to the point where his
books are, in places, pretty ridiculous.

I have never understood how someone like Gofman who has a very respectable
scientific background could distort as he does.

Ruth Weiner
ruth_weiner@msn.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Franz Schoenhofer <schoenho@via.at>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Monday, July 31, 2000 4:08 PM
Subject: Re: congressional testimony by Steve Wing


>
>Furthermore I cannot believe that the AEC asked somebody like Gofman to
>study levels of safe doses - would you please provide us with his findings?
>It is the privilege of scientists to research and to adjust their opinions
>according to the findings of research results. Since 1963 a lot has changed
>and so has the knowledge about the effects of low-level radiation.
>
>Again I delete most of your unnecessary copies. Please do so in the future.
>>
>
>Franz
>
>
>Franz Schoenhofer
>Habicherg. 31/7
>A-1160 Vienna
>Austria
>Tel.: +43-1-495 53 08
>Fax.: same number
>mobile phone: +43-664-338 0 333
>e-mail: schoenho@via.at
>
>
>Please note my new telephone number at my office!
>
>Office:
>Ministerialrat Dr. Franz Schoenhofer
>Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management
>Radiation Protection Department (BMLFUW I/8 U)
>Radetzkystr. 2
>A-1031 Vienna
>AUSTRIA
>
>phone: -43-1-71100-4458
>fax: -43-1-7122331
>
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