Re: $/man-rem

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

Sandy,

    Thanks for trying. I really hope you (or anyone) can dig up the

rationale, if any, behind the outrageous $10K/man-rem guidance. The reason

for my curiosity is that perhaps I was the first to offer such guidance. My

recommendation was $250 $/man-rem ( see HPJ 19:633  (1970), & HPJ

25:527 (1973).

    The $10K/man-rem figure seems to convey a total lack of understanding of

the concept of Optimization (cost-effectiveness). The $1000/man-rem in

Appendix I was bad enough!

    Cost-effectiveness is primarily an economic concept. The

cost-effectiveness guideline ($/man-rem) defines an optimum. If we deviate

from this optimum in either direction we are worse off. Health protection,

like other desirable things is a commodity. Like any other commodity, if the

cost is too high people won't buy it (at least not in a free market). If the

cost is too low, we lose money. Fundamentally, given limited resources

(which is almost always the case), if health protection is our goal, we

should spend these limited resources where they do the most good. In this

regard, the $10k we squander on avoiding one man-rem, could buy considerably

more health protection if spent elsewhere. Of course we don't have a free

market in health protection which is what allows the bandit bureaucrats &

politicians  to get away with such egregious regulation.

    Of course this discussion presumes that LNT is a valid concept. If, as I

suspect, LNT is not valid, then the whole thing becomes total nonsense.





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

From: Sandy Perle <sandyfl@earthlink.net>

To: Jerry Cohen <jjcohen@prodigy.net>

Sent: Saturday, April 20, 2002 7:02 PM

Subject: Re: $/man-rem





> On 20 Apr 2002 at 18:19, Jerry Cohen wrote:

>

> >  Do you know where the $10K/man-rem figure came from? Just curious.

>

> Jerry,

>

> I'll have to go back and dig up some of my old papers. Off the top of my

>head,  don't recall. I do remember there wasn't a lot of

> scientific basis behind it, but, there were some reason as to how they

arrived >at that figure.

>

> I'll see what I can dig up.

>

> Sandy



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