Re: Meeting public demand

["Jerry Cohen" <jjcohen@PRODIGY.NET>]

I am also for democracy (along with motherhood and apple pie). However, I am

concerned that one way of losing our democratic form of government is to

condone its excessive abuse by irresponsible politicians and bureaucrats. As

a case in point, perhaps you can recall the BRC fiasco of a few years ago.

Whether one is pro or con on the LNT issue, I think that almost everyone

knowledgeable in radiation protection realizes that even if there were no

dose threshold there is some low dose level below which the effects of

radiation

could reasonably considered trivial, insignificant, de minimis, or below

regulatory concern (BRC).

Recognizing this, the NRC spent a lot of taxpayers money studying the

scientific aspects of the problem and developed a proposed BRC policy that,

at least in my mind, made some sense. They later withdrew this policy

proposal in response to political pressure. The anti-nukes had apparently

persuaded a few congressmen that a BRC policy would open the door to

widespeard public exposure to deadly radioactivity, cancer, birth defects,

etc.  and the NRC collapsed in response to this pressure. My point is that

NRC could have  saved much time, effort, and most of all, money if they had

just short-circuited the process by determining the public/political climate

in the first place and ignored the science which was apparently of little

importance in this case. I am sure there are several other examples of this

sort of problem . Why bother with the science if it can have no impact in a

system pervaded by spin, politics, and PR.



> -----Original Message-----

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

> Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 4:12 AM

> To: Jerry Cohen

> Cc: Vincent A King/KINGVA/CC01/INEEL/US; radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu

> Subject: Re: Meeting public demand

>

>

> Although science is important in determining the risk versus benefit

> tradeoffs,

> the ultimate decisions on radiation protection, or any other regulations,

> are

> political.

>

> It's called democracy.  The only thing worse is anything else.





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