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Jim -
From the last link ...
"Nuclear Control Institute (NCI) calculations
utilizing the standard radiological consequence code MACCS2 indicate that a
large radiological release from a nuclear power plant could lead to exposures to
radioactive iodine exceeding FDA-recommended thresholds for potassium
iodide prophylaxis at distances hundreds of miles downwind of the site.
This is of particular concern for young children. Yet the authors of the
Science article, instead of calling for greater protection for children,
callously dismiss the more
than 2000 childhood thyroid cancers --- a more than hundred-fold excess --- that are almost certainly attributable to radioactive iodine released from the Chernobyl accident." I'm surprised that you let the above paragraph
pass without making at least a small reference to GIGO (garbage in, garbage
out). Anybody who's ever run any consequence assessment code knows that you
can "monkey around" with the input parameters to get whatever answer you want on
the back end. The trick is to pick a "realistically conservative" set of input
parameters which give a result that provides a reasonable upper bound to
"realistic" consequences. So what if NCI ran MACCS2? Did NCI also use "standard
radiological consequence assessment methodologies", or did they hand-pick their
input parameters to generate the "doom and gloom" results which further their
agenda? <This is a rhetorical question>
My $0.02 worth ...
Jim Hardeman
>>> "Jim Hoerner" <jim_hoerner@HOTMAIL.COM> 9/23/2002 16:33:36 >>> >http://nci.org/02NCI/08/pr9202002.htm For those that are interested, there were some replies to the NCI statement posted at the following links: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Know_Nukes/message/6264 (Dr. Lyman replied in private email to my question. He cited BEIR VI and Brenner, Little and Sachs, The Bystander Effect in Radiation Oncogenesis II: A Quantitative Model," Radiation Research 155 (3) 2001, p. 402.) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Know_Nukes/message/6271 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Know_Nukes/message/6272 (warning, this one has a wonderful unprofessional personal insult :-) ) |