Re: Claims of Sternglass & others

["Vincent A King/KINGVA/CC01/INEEL/US" <KINGVA@INEL.GOV>]

Jason and Radsafers,



Well, autopsies are a bit extreme for most routine environmental monitoring

programs (unless its bunnies and fish, but then you just use the

bass-o-matic and count everything).



OR, much more simply, you can take milk/vegetation/water/air/etc. samples

(as nuclear power plants do) and apply known transfer coefficients to

determine biological distribution and derive an upper bound to the doses

from consumption.  These are known quantities and are typically very

conservative; they are not mysterious unknown things going on that are

going to result in huge doses from radionuclides which are otherwise

undetectable in the food pathway.

Try this thought experiment:  assume every radionuclide you release is in

the milk or vegetation or water of whatever, JUST below the detection limit

so that you missed seeing it. (By the way, you will still quite easily

detect naturally occurring radionuclides in these samples.)  Now assume

100% transfer of these radionuclide amounts to a human receptor with no

losses and with every radioactive atom decaying in the receptor before

being otherwise eliminated and calculate the dose.  You still wind up with

millirem or submillirem doses for your upper bound estimate (again,

compared to much larger doses from natural background).



Sternglass et. al. take advantage of people's unfamiliarity with these

"mysterious" biological properties, and their refusal to follow a simple

thought-experiment process like the one above to make it sound like

nooooobody knows what goes on with these nasty, evil, radioactive poisons.

They like to hide the fact that there are experts out there who do this for

a living (with degrees, lab coats, and everything) and that results are put

in reports that are available for public reading, if the public so desired.

And to address your specific suggestion, autopsies have indeed played a

role in determining many transfer coefficients, biological distribution,

etc. (but there's probably not an ongoing need to perform autopsies on a

case by case basis unless human anatomy and metabolism change dramatically

in the near future).



Hope this doesn't sound like I'm trivializing any concern on your part - my

point is just that, contrary to what the anti's try to portray, this stuff

has been done.



Vincent King,

Idaho Falls





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