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Jerry,
I believe
that simply stating that " the CDC study assumes a linear, no-threshold model,
which is clearly wrong " is unconvincing to journalists and the public. Clear to
whom ? Journalists ? The public ? Norm Cohen ? ....I don't think
so.
What's needed
here is the old-fashioned "apples with apples" comparison :
If
the CDC folks figure they can apply LNT to doses below 3 mGy spread over a
decade ( ie. less than 10% of natural background ), than we need to tell people
what kind of numbers this approach produces when applied to that other 90+% of
radiation exposure.
According to UNSCEAR, the global natural radiation background collective effective dose for 50 years at the current rate
is 650 million person-Sv, or approximately 100 times the weapons-testing collective dose (for atmospheric weapons testing, UNSCEAR gives 7million person-Sv committed in total from 1945
to 2200 A.D.).
In those
states neighboring the Nevada test sites the fallout was quite a bit higher than
the average global figure, so the bomb testing fallout collective dose for
that population subset would be more than one-hundredth of the natural
background collective dose -- to as much as one-tenth in some local hotspots.
But since we're dealing in collective dose, these small populations (those
mountain states have a relatively sparse population to begin with) will have
little impact on over-all numbers -- most of the collective dose total will have
come from lower individual radiation exposures to the vast populations in the US
midwest, east and south (also, the fallout from H-bomb tests in the Pacific
Ocean and Siberia obviously bears no relation to the location of states relative
to Nevada ).
So, if
the CDC study calculates 15,000 cancer deaths due to bomb testing fallout in the
U.S., the same straight-forward application of LNT to the collective dose from
natural background radiation will yield a figure on the order of 1,500,000
cancer deaths. On a global scale, the number of calculated cancer deaths due to
bomb testing fallout will be something like 300,000, and for natural background
radiation, on the order of 30 million.
But
some people may not believe the UNSCEAR figures, so we may also illustrate
the point using the massaged figures of Dr. Rosalie Bertell, who
calculates 1.138-billion-"victims" due to atmospheric weapons testing -- which would
yield some 100-billion-"victims" due to natural background exposure -- in other
words, we're all dying because of radiation, nothing
else....
Hopefully at this point, folks will begin to
question some of the scary claims -- particularly if put in proper perspective
with information about lack of detrimental effects of radiation in
high-natural-background regions like Kerala, India, like Ramsar, Iran, and like
Guarapari, Brazil. Whether the media will allow the debunking of their
best-selling horror stories is another question.....
Jaro -----Original Message-----
From: Jerry Cohen [mailto:jjcohen@PRODIGY.NET] Sent: Friday March 01, 2002 9:49 PM To: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu Subject: fallout "deaths" The following is from the What's New
website:
. FALLOUT: "EVERYONE HAS BEEN EXPOSED TO FALLOUT FROM TESTING."
So what? A wildly irresponsible study from the Center of Disease Control estimates that fallout from testing will result in 11,000 cancer deaths. Would you believe zero? Atmospheric testing was dumb, and any testing now is dumber. But the CDC study assumes a linear, no-threshold model, which is clearly wrong. There is no evidence that low levels cause cancer and some evidence that low radiation levels may stimulate the body's protective mechanisms. |