Re: Mechanisms are Needed to Explain Cohen's Data - Lipton

[William V Lipton <liptonw@DTEENERGY.COM>]

Michael Ford wrote:



> Bill and the multitude of others,

>

> ...

>

> In your situation, Bill, monitoring worker exposures and mitigating those exposures in NPP environments is certainly a defensible activity.  However, the millions, billions, and trillions, that are being spent in the name of Health Physics, Radiation Protection, ALARA, etc., require that we actually demonstrate, at some point in time, that what we are doing has some scientific basis associated with it.  (For example, 15 mrem/yr (EPA) vs. 25 mrem/yr (NRC) - - what's the impact of either and how is that demonstrated??)

> ...



Many thanx for your posting.  It helped me clarify my own thoughts and raises two interesting considerations:



1.  Although standards are generally based on science, they ultimately involve value judgments.  For whatever reasons, the public has generally chosen to spend more money per unit of risk for radiation than for many other hazards.  It doesn't have to make sense.  Hence, the abstruse and ego-driven debate over radon/LNT is pointless.



2.  Your concept of a "defensible activity" is interesting, although I'm not sure what you mean.  If people are willing to pay for a service, but don't really need it, is it "defensible" to provide it for a profit?  I think so, provided you're not harming or misleading anyone; eg., selling pet rocks is probably a defensible activity, provided you don't claim they cure AIDS.  Is it "defensible" to provide a service that's not needed if someone else has scared them into thinking they need it?  I don't know.



The opinions expressed are strictly mine.

It's not about dose, it's about trust.

Let's look at the real problems, for a change.



Bill Lipton

liptonw@dteenergy.com











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