Re: Comments on Gofman and Tamplin & Municiple Sewage Plant I-131 threads

[RadiumProj@cs.com]

In a message dated 8/1/00 5:41:11 PM Eastern Daylight Time, schoenho@via.at 
writes:

> 
>  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

Radsafers:

In the early to mid-1970s I recall Drs. Gofman and Tamplin co-authored a book 
which was issued in paperback, intended for a very general public  readership 
titled: "Population Control through Nuclear Pollution". This book made a 
number of extrapolated claims of cancer mortality based on all members of the 
public being exposed at the limit of what was then allowed under federal law 
that I'm sure Dr. Rosalie Bertell would today judge to be quite conservative.

I also recall seeing a paper by Dr. Sternglass presented as part of some AEC 
symposium in the late 1960s to very early 1970s in which he reported the 
radioactive discharges from the University of Pittsburg Hospital at which he 
worked at the time. What struck me in first seeing Dr. Sternglass' data was 
the magnitude of the I-131 release he quantified. The U. of Pittsburg 
Hospital discharges of I-131 far, far exceeded what any nuclear plant whose 
environmental radiation monitoring programs I summarized and reported was 
allowed to discharge on an annual basis. Most bizarre. 

I wonder if Dr. Sternglass ever developed any correlations between infant 
mortality and cancer from the Univ. of Pitt. discharges under his control 
since they were so much higher than the typical releases from nuclear plants 
in 1972. I'm sure with the reductions in nuclear power plant effluents since 
1972 and the increased number of nuclear medicine procedures involving I-131 
and host of other radiopharmaceuticals at any hospital, one would see that  
the ratio of discharges from a "typical" large hospital like that at the 
Univ. of Pittsburg to the typical NPP liquid and even gaseous I-131 effluents 
would be even higher today.

Stewart Farber, MSPH
Public Health Sciences
e-mail: radiumproj@cs.com
************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html