Re: Rosalie Bertell critique of ICRP standards

["Bjorn Cedervall" <bcradsafers@HOTMAIL.COM>]

>I ran across this 1998 critique of the ICRP radiation standards by Rosalie 

>Bertell and thought I would share it with those of you who enjoy such 

>matters.

------------------------------------

My personal opinion - not approved by anyone is as follows:



If you read the stuff by RB be critical to every statement, use of words 

(semantics, many wordings are unclear and impossible to understand) and 

number. After a while it becomes very tiresome and boring - in particular 

because RB uses a lot of non-scientific jargong - examples from her book No 

immediate danger (1985) (I also read many other works by RB):



"The violence of the fission process..." (p. 19), "Radioactive lead... is a 

cause of lead poisoning and brain damage (p.22)", on alpha particles (p. 

24): "...like a cannon-ball relative to a bullet...", neutrons...act like 

... small bullets." (p. 24). Decays are described as "explosions per second" 

(p. 31) - this about bullets and explosions continues on the following 

pages. On page 36 the discussion about sperm damage refers to protein 

breakage - she probably meant DNA. On page 39 the overweight problem of 

Americans is explained by I-131 fallout. On p. 65 it says that Harry Dahlian 

died from radioactive fission products (wouldn't we rather say gammas and 

neutrons?). On pages 104-105 RB estimates the number of radiation caused 

cancers, fatalities, and genetic damages (to the year 2000...) to 10 million 

to 22 million. Sweden's NPP program is "aggressive" (p. 264). Pages 175-184 

have all been taken from Z. Medvedev's book (1976). All references in this 

secion (ref. 61 to 74, p.411) have been taken from Medvedev. According to my 

opinion RB adds nothing new.



When RB criticizes ICRP and other authorities she leaves out a lot of 

important information and pretends that it doesn't exist. She seems to think 

that anyone involved with anything nuclear or radioactive, HP people, 

radiation scientists, RSO:s..., is best friend with the military and so on.



Be particularly aware of the references used:

1. Some of the most extreme numbers come from herself as the source.

2. Many references have not been refereed or can't be found or have 

questionable relevance (who can easily check an issue of Milwaukee Journal 

or Prairie Mesenger from 1978, Toronto Star from 1979, Reader's Digest 1975 

(p. 412) can probably be found but so what?, National Conferencence on 

Catholic Bishops (May 1983) (p. 421), Speech by Chief Seattle in 1854), You 

are what you eat (Mother Jones Magazine, July 1981)(p. 419). Other refs. are 

from Congress hearings where I assume that "you" (=RB) can say whatever you 

want.

3. Refs. from scientific journals are generally low-impact kinds and the 

"wrong ones" (RB math in medical journals, medical stuf in technical 

journals etc). At least one of the journals - a medical one seemed to have a 

very biased editorial board - I checked two volumes around 15 years ago - 

about half of the articles where by the editors (if I remember right the 

medical journal was/is Canadian.



OKLO (p. 17) must have been a tough problem so RB writes: "The radioactive 

forms of these chemicals (//fission products//) were, prior to 1943, present 

in only trace quantities in isolated places... for example in South Africa 

where it appears that a small nuclear fission reaction occurred 

spontaneously hundreds of thousands of years ago."

(the names OKLO and Gabon are not mentioned).



What I wrote above may be somewhat affected by my ideas but it is certainly 

true that this also reflects my opinion about the works by RB (probably the 

lowest level of science I ever read - but there is some competition "out 

there"...).



Bjorn Cedervall   bcradsafers@hotmail.com









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