Re: The Tooth Fairy project

[Bob Flood <bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

>Teeth are being collected in Toms River that show
>Sr-90 levels like in the mid to late 50s.

The TFP has made this point before, as well as claiming in some cases and
suggesting in others that recently releases of Sr-90 from nuclear plants 1)
are the reason that they are detecting levels equal to the atmospheric
testing days, and 2) that this Sr-90 is responsible for an identifiable
outbreak of childhood cancers.

If the Sr-90 being detected today really is equal to what was seen 40+ years
ago, and if it really is responsible for the childhood cancers, this raises
an obvious question that is easily answered. The Sr-90 levels of the 50's
were largely nationwide, even well upwind of the Nevada Test Site, the
principal source of fallout in the continental US in those days. So if the
Sr-90 levels now are causing in increase in childhood cancers now, the Sr-90
levels back then shouuld have done the same - right? It would have been a
nationwide epidemic of cancer in children. But no such epidemic happened.
How can this be, if the TFP claims are correct?

Strontium is a bone-seeker, a characteristic that the TFP seems to rely as
the basis for dismissing the absence of problems surrounding "natural"
radiation. Well, radium is a bone-seeker just like strontium and is a common
constituent in well water over large parts of the country, especially out
west. If the dose from one bone-seeking radionuclide causes childhood
cancers, the dose from all boneseekers should do the same, right? If that
was actually happening, there would be far more childhood cancer than anyone
could hide or explain away.

The fundamental premises of the TFP are fatally flawed.
============================
Bob Flood
Dosimetry Group Leader
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
bflood@slac.stanford.edu


************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html