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RE: (Mostly NOT off-topic) Fallout and PTSD and Contingency Fees
Barbara,
Well said. But I disagree with your "off-topic" characterization. :-) This addresses the heart of the radiation protection business. This has long been recognized.
As Marshall Brucer, a 'founding fater of nuclear medicine" at Oak Ridge, http://www.atomicmuseum.com/tour/nm1d8.cfm http://www.orau.org/history/brucer.htm said in the HPS Newsletter in 1987:
"After World War II, almost 20 articles per year mentioned a hormetic effect in spite of a budding fallout hysteria. Health Physicists soon learned that their livelihood depended upon scaring the pants off Congress. H. Muller predicted a genetic catastrophe from A-Bomb exposure in a 1955 flurry of headline publicity. [No publicity was given the disproof 35 years later.] This was (at least for the media) scientific proof that radiation cause such things as two headed babies. In 1957, a fire in a power reactor at Windscale, England, released 20 curies of I-131 into the atmosphere. Newspapers predicted thousands of thyroid cancers in end-of-the-world headlines (but failed to mention, 25 years later, that no biologic effect has ever been detected).
"Health Physics is Self-Perpetuating.
"Health Physics and Genetics were supported lavishly by radiation hysteria, and Radiation Biology was the most intensely researched science in history. At the 1955 Atoms-for-Peace conference an English geneticist uttered heresy at the opening session. Background radiation, he said, was probably the cause of most mutations throughout evolution, and the human race had not done too bad. He was almost read out of science for this heresy. Every Genetics budget meeting, from 1955 to 1981 opened its request for funds wht an anti-nuclear litany. In spite of this atmosphere, during the 1960’s and 1970’s, about 40 articles per year described hormesis. In 1963, the AEC repeatedly confirmed lower mortality in guinea pigs, rats and mice irradiated at low dose. In 1964, the cows exposed to about 150 rads after the Trinity A-Bomb in 1946 were quietly euthenized because of extreme old age.
"A Little Radiation Is Good for You.
"In 1981, T. Luckey revived a very obvious radiation hormesis. No experimental evidence of damage at low-dose existed; self-serving extrapolations from high-dose data dominated Health Physics. One New York Health Physics bureaucrat passed off hormesis as a "theory" similar to evolution. But, in 1983, M. Brucer published an article in the Health Physics Newsletter entitled "Radiation is Good For You," and over 200 reprint requests indicated agreement with his position.
"In August 1985, a Conference on Radiation Hormesis in Oakland, California, recognized the reversal in concepts of radiation effects. Its Proceedings, published in the Health Physics journal in 1987, finally recognized that low dose radiation is not only good for you, it is essential to life. "
See: http://www.fortfreedom.org/s10.htm
Regards, Jim Muckerheide
Radiation, Science, and Health
-----Original Message-----
From: BLHamrick@AOL.COM [mailto:BLHamrick@AOL.COM]
Sent: Sat 09-Mar-02 1:01 AM
To: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
Cc:
Subject: (Mostly off-topic) Fallout and PTSD and Contingency Fees
As one of our Ruths pointed out, it is Friday night, and so a little
off-topic philosophizing might possibly be excused, right?
In a message dated 03/08/2002 7:45:52 PM Pacific Standard Time,
lavelyp@UCLINK4.BERKELEY.EDU writes:
> It is the APA that makes such statements. I only quoted and paraphrased it.
> I also based it on how I have seen it applied to intentional infliction of
> emotional distress or negligent infliction of emotional distress with PTSD
>
As Shakespeare said, "First, kill all the lawyers" (myself excluded, of
course). One of the problems we face today is the result of an aggressively
litigious society. Someone must pay, right? If it's not my fault, then I
must find whose "fault" it is, and force them to pay.
The problem with this is that it is that, for many, it is human nature to
deny oneself is to blame under any circumstances. Thus, the fact that one is
ignorant about the effects of low-level radiation, would rarely be found to
be the "cause" of PTSD resulting from a frightening experience involving a
potential low-level exposure, although perhaps that should be introduced as a
defense (I'd love to give that theory a shot on someone else's dime).
Furthermore, as you point out, Mr. Lavely, in the TMI case, the NRC wasn't
sure what to do, nor the State of PA, and the media exacerbated this
situation with alarming news reports. Perhaps the media should be sued for
the intentional infliction of emotional distress...I wouldn't mind pursuing
that legal theory either.
If PTSD is caused by an event where there is no actual physical harm from the
agent causing the fear, then the person causing the event is not to blame,
unless they are the ones that subsequently drum up the fear. In the case of
TMI, e.g., TMI causes the event, which causes no harm, but the NRC, the State
of PA, the media, and the ignorance of the residents effectively create a
state of panic. Who's to blame?
At some point, we, as a society, must accept that there are risks taken for
the ultimate benefit of all. Nothing is 100% safe, ever. But, how should we
parcel risk of being scared of something that doesn't harm us, except for the
fear we experience that it might harm us? That's the question the PTSD from
TMI poses.
It is different than the fear caused by a potential murderer, for example,
who fails his (or her...as if) goal, because the intent of the murderer is to
DO you harm, so the fear has a basis in the knowledge that there was an event
that actually threatened your life, and the intent was to actually take your
life, and your life would have been taken by that event but for some
intervening, possibly arbitrary, action. This is entirely different than an
event, which is completely unplanned, and which does you no harm, did not
intend to do you any harm, and nothing specific prevented the event from
doing you harm, because it was in its essence a harmless event.
I don't see this as a question of psychiatry at all, but a question of who is
fiscally responsible for irrational fear. Is it the entity creating the
harmless event that you irrationally fear, the government entities or media
exacerbating your fear, or your own ignorance that creates the potential for
that fear? Who, as a society, should we be holding responsible for this kind
of risk? If we acknowledge that this is a legitimate risk, then how do we
parcel that risk out?
Frankly, if we do anything under the color of law, I would like to see us
move toward equalizing those risks across the economic strata (put an LLRW
site in Newport Beach, e.g.). I'd rather balance our risks with an
environmental justice model, and stop courting the irresponsiblity of the
ignorant plaintiff that can either afford an attorney, or has the time to
find one willing to bet his firm on a big money toxic tort case a la Ed
Masry.
That's just my opinion, of course.
Barbara L. Hamrick
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