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RE: Fire breaks out on nuclear ship
Ted,
You are preaching to the choir. However, I think the Japanese would take
issue with the statement that no deaths are attributed to plutonium.
-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
3050 Traymore Lane
Bowie, MD 20715-2024
E-mail: jenday1@email.msn.com (H)
-----Original Message-----
From: Ted Rockwell [mailto:tedrock@cpcug.org]
Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2002 11:54 AM
To: Jacobus, John (OD/ORS); RadSafe
Subject: RE: Fire breaks out on nuclear ship
> "If this fire had taken place with a plutonium or nuclear waste cargo the
consequences could have been catastrophic."
John:
This is a typical news story which is not news unless you bring in the word
nuclear. But it was not a "nuclear ship" in any rational use of the term.
Is a ship that once carried diamonds a "diamond ship"? The story is just
another vehicle by which Greenpeace can cynically repeat its mantra
associating "nuclear" and "plutonium" with disaster. Just keep repeating
it, and it becomes not only truth but a deep-seated fear.
It's like publicizing every story involving an Italian criminal and
reminding people that it's Italians who run the mafia. We've handled Pu in
tonnage lots for nearly two human generations without a single death
attributable to Pu. You can't say that about many materials!
Even with a full load of plutonium (whatever that is) and a full-scale fire,
there would have been no medically-significant public hazard. Greenpeace et
al might be able to whip up some baseless panic. But if putting 5 to 7 TONS
of plutonium into the air though weapons tests could create no single case
of Pu-related illness, then a few grams wouldn't do it.
Sorry!
Ted
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