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

[Jack_Earley@RL.GOV]

Bill--



This is a marketing question. If we only bought what we needed, we would

restrict our purchases to food, clothing, and shelter (theoretically). See

Paul Pilzer for more on real economics. The public isn't paying for it

directly, and since they aren't crying "foul" on the regulators, it will

continue. I look at it in a way similar to health insurance. If we were

paying for our own, many of us would have none (due to the cost-benefit,

i.e., use, analysis or just too expensive), many of us would only have major

medical for the same reason, and those who really needed it would pay the

most. If the public were paying directly, and optionally, for "radiation

protection," probably fewer than 10 percent would do it. Can you really

picture a bunch of environmentalists trying to earn a living by attempting

to convince people to actually spend their own money to buy the latest and

greatest in radiation protection innovations? They only push it because it's

OPM (other people's money). John Cameron and Bernie Cohen are putting their

money behind their words (or in Dr. Cohen's case, additionally, turning off

a system he spent money on). To me, that's objective science (that should be

redundant, but unfortunately it isn't). Which is why I said a week or so ago

I didn't believe the Nobel scientists who claim HIV doesn't cause AIDS would

be injecting themselves with the virus to prove their cases.



Jack Earley

Radiological Engineer





-----Original Message-----

From: William V Lipton [mailto:liptonw@DTEENERGY.COM]

Sent: Monday, January 14, 2002 9:56 AM

To: Michael Ford

Cc: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu

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









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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