Feedback - RALPH E. LAPP's letter to WASHINGTON POST

["J. J. Rozental" <joseroze@netvision.net.il>]

Jose Julio Rozental

joseroze@netvision.net.il

 

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RALPH E. LAPP's letter to WASHINGTON POST

Radiation Risk Realities

Thursday, November 21, 2002; Page A40

The Nov. 11 front-page story on "dirty bomb" risks, "Hunting a Deadly Soviet Legacy," needed to put the threat in perspective. The release of radioactive cesium into the atmosphere from the Chernobyl plant in 1986 was 1,000 times as great as the release in the "dirty bomb" scenario.

In assessing radiation risk, it is essential to understand the basic facts about data accumulated during half a century of medical studies. Among a half-million Hiroshima survivors, for example, fewer than 1 percent of the observed cancer deaths were the result of the A-bomb radiation.

How many Americans know that?

RALPH E. LAPP

Alexandria

My Note -  Ralph E. Lapp, SB'40, PhD'46, My Life with Radiation: Hiroshima Plus 50 Years (Medical Physics Publishing). Lapp describes his participation in radiation research--beginning as a physics graduate student and, later, as the assistant lab director of the University's Metallurgical Project--extending from early A-bomb tests to today's controversies surrounding radiation risks.

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CANADA Sunday  November 24 2002

Dirty bombs 'top priority', CSIS told

http://canada.com/national/story.asp?id=%7B33ECB0DF-7A4A-4528-8F9D-0C69FB085F8A%7D

Jim Bronskill
The Ottawa Citizen Preventing terrorists from getting their hands on a dirty bomb or other deadly weapon is now among the highest priorities for Canada's spy service, says a secret federal intelligence directive. The need to ensure adequate physical protection of nuclear material has "become more acute in recent years" for a number of reasons, including an increase in excess weapons-grade substances, poor control of material in certain newly independent states, the potential growth of nuclear power in less-developed countries and a rise in the number of incidents of illicit trafficking of material, say additional notes released by the Solicitor General's Department. ------------- INDEPENDENT - UK Radioactive waste stored has doubled in 15 years By Marie Woolf Chief Political Correspondent 21 November 2002 The amount of radioactive waste being stored in Britain has more than doubled in the past 15 years. The Government has released figures showing that stocks of nuclear waste, including high-level waste that will remain hazardous for tens of thousands of years, increased from 45,580 cubic metres in 1986 to 92,103 cubic metres last year.

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