Re: lochbaum on nuke plant aging

["Michael Stabin" <michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu>]

I would ask Mr. Lochbaum if he is working as hard to shut down all smelter

furnaces around the country and world as well. Even if these recent

exposures were overstated by the media (surprise!) I wager that the real

doses are still higher than most any overexposures catalogued at nuke power

plants. How about university or other particle accelerators? We've had

several serious radiation dose incidents there, involving very bad skin

burns, and loss or partial loss of extremeties. Shall we shut them all down?

Ummm, industrial radiography sources - is it his (and/or your) position that

these should be banned? Lost industrial radiography sources have been

responsible for several very serious overdose incidents involving the

general public, in some cases involving multiple deaths. Medical equipment

sterilization facilities? Some bad incidents here, also involving multiple

deaths. By this, I mean *real* people died, as opposed to LNT model-based

theoretical cancer deaths projected into the next 50 years.



By comparison to these well accepted uses of radiation, which at times cause

injuries because of misuse, operation of well designed nuclear reactors is

quite safe (also environmentally friendly). TMI was a serious incident from

an industrial point of view, and trivial from a public health point of

view - the safety systems *worked*. The highest off site dose was about one

fourth of that received from natural background radiation in a year. There

were a few deaths - but only from car crashes on the interstates due to

media-induced panic. Let's Unplug Dan Rather.





Mike



Michael G. Stabin, PhD, CHP

Assistant Professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences

Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences

Vanderbilt University

1161 21st Avenue South

Nashville, TN 37232-2675

Phone (615) 322-3190

Fax   (615) 322-3764

e-mail  michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu





> This is a text file, without illustrations, and without the UCS heading,

etc. Word file availble, just ask me.

> This was written by Lochbaum.

>

> Norm

>

>

>

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

> >

> > Aging Nuclear Plants and License Renewal - Updated 09/13/2001





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