Re: Toothfairy strikes again....

[BLReider@aol.com]

In a message dated 11/5/00 4:25:27 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
franz.schoenhofer@chello.at writes:

<< I found during scrolling a lot of names, "Gould" and "Sternglass" for
 instance, They are well known as notorious antinuclear people, Sternglass
 "well known" for his unacceptable theories of Sr-90 impact on child
 mortality, which are not supported by any facts. I found a lot of names of
 nuclear power plants, a lot of "studies" etc. but what I did not find -
 maybe I scrolled too fast (...) - was any numbers. I could not find the only
 scientific valuable expertise - what are the values of acitvity
 concentrations, what are the background values, what is the dependency of
 Sr-90 activity concentration on the year, what is the connection to any
 diseases. No facts. >>

When I worked at ANL a while back, I had occasion to answer concerns of Dr. 
Sternglass regarding environmental impact statements.  He claimed to use the 
accepted government radiation induced mportality rates, but came up with an 
astronomical number of deaths due to the source term - in disagreement with 
our estimates.  Dr. Sternglass did not give the assumptions which were used 
in his calculations, but I was able to recreate the same results. 

If I recall correctly, as it has been a number of years, the assumptions 
which I used to recreate his results were:

1.  The number of atoms that decayed in the airborne source term in a year 
was calculated.

2.  Each of these airborne atoms was assumed to be breathed in by an 
individual.

3.  The population dose was calculated for the year based on this intake.

4.  The same cancer rates that were used by the government were applied to 
the population dose.

Of course the above assumption of intake is unrealistic, and will give 
results that are quite elevated.

It is my recollection that Dr. Sternglass compared his calculated population 
dose with the dose from one year of natural background (which didn't assume 
that every atom decaying was part of a human intake).

I do think it is a good exercise to determine the specific assumptions used 
in  calculations that are used as a basis for political statements, and to be 
able to show how their values were calculated.  While people in the public 
might not understand dose calculations, people can often easily understand 
that a basic assumption is unrealistic.  

Barbara Reider, CHP
Reider Radiation Consulting LLC
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