Re: Gofman and Tamplin

[Franz Schoenhofer <schoenho@via.at>]

At 06:47 01.08.2000 -0500, you wrote:
>
>
> An earlier comment, oft quoted:
>>
>In the late 1960s I was on the faculty of the Department of Applied
Sciences, UC
>Livermore/Davis, and Gofman and Tamplin were with the medical department
at what
>later became the Lawrence Livermore National Lab.  They were tasked with
>collecting, reviewing and analyzing all available information on low-dose
>radiation effects by the AEC, which funded the lab at that time.  At a
faculty
>seminar, Tamplin gave a presentation of their work to date -- which
essentially
>found no effects of very low doses -- and a critique of Sternglass's paper
>alleging that weapons fallout was responsible for increased infant
mortality in
>the UK. Sternglass had actually taken a graph from a British Health
Service.......

Thanks, Jacques and Ruth to give the relevant information about Gofman. I
did not know about the circumstances of his carreer because I only know
about his later work. In the late seventies, when the discussion about the
Austrian Nuclear Power Plant at Zwentendorf was at its height I was invited
to several discussions about nuclear power and so I came across the "work"
of Sternglass and had to deal with it carefully, because his "work" was at
that time very popular among European (and Austrian) anti's. I did not know
about the origin of his graphs, but as far as I remember (and I think I
remember this very well), he did not claim that Sr-90 was guilty for an
increased infant mortality, but he claimed that it was the reason, why
infant mortality did not decrease by the same percentage per year, as it
did in previous years, but that it decreased by a lower percentage. I
remember well, that when discussing with people who had to work to make
their living my arguments were very well received, they were not so well
received by young people of age between 14 and 18 in schools. I took this
as a hint that the attitude of people to electricity and associated wealth
depended on their social status - the young people took all the wealth for
granted, so why should they need nuclear power?, the ones who had to work
hard to sustain a certain living standard were supporting the idea of
generating - at this time cheaper - power by NPPs. 

I have myself experienced people changing from pro-nuclear to anti-nuclear,
because they guessed that they would make a living from it. But even among
the anti's there is a certain hierarchy and not everybody gets a bit of the
cake. So I have to tell you that "Gofman" and "Sternglass" are well known
names for me, but I never heard about "Tamplin"!

Regards,

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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