Re: Dr Alice Stewart dies

[RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]

Sic transit gloria mundi.


I read some of Alice Stewart's papers from the 1950s and 1960s, and she was indeed a good epidemiologist, and if you read those papers, you will see that the rate of cancers in radiation workers is about the same as for any other industry at that time where relatively unprotected workers dealt with large concentrations of carcinogens.  In fact, these early papers look at the total effect of industrial exposure.  Occupational radiation protection has improved dramatically in the last half century.


I believe that Dr. Stewart bought into the LNT wholesale, as many of us did at one time, and then became co-opted.  I have also received  some environmental awards, and it's seductive.  Moreover, when one says to one's environmental admirers "look, there's some new evidence, and maybe I'm wrong about this theory,"  etc, one is endlessly vilified.  


Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com