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>Democracy
and free speech often seem to get in the way of progress.
Remember the recent scare article about tens of
thousands of cancer deaths occurring annually in children being overexposed
in pediatric CT procedures? Yes, we can do better at optimizing CT exposures,
and many are now striving to do so. But this was a bad misuse of LNT, and a
bit of "free speech" that now has parents across the country refusing to let
their children receive ANY CT exposures, in many cases when they should receive
them, for diagnosing potentially serious diseases. Once again, *real*
deaths may occur from inappopriate responses to claims about *theoretical*
deaths from a suspect model.
Dangerous and irresponsible free speech (like
yelling "fire" in a theater when there is none) is, and should be, prohibited.
Making absurd claims about infant mortality from a *fraudulent* (not *faulty*)
epidemiological study, IMHO, may constitute dangerous and irresponsible
speech.
Mike
Michael G. Stabin, PhD, CHP
Assistant Professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences Vanderbilt University 1161 21st Avenue South Nashville, TN 37232-2675 Phone (615) 343-0068 Fax (615) 322-3764 e-mail michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu internet www.doseinfo-radar.com |