Re: AARST Radon Scientist Claim Nation's Policy a Failure-Inflammatory Claims of Harm

[Stewart Farber <farbersa@optonline.net>]

Hi Richard:



To respond to your comment.



The issue of the estimate of 20,000 deaths per year from indoor radon being upper 

bound estimates is only one [small] point about my posting vs. the AARST and EPA 

claims of harm. The actual risk may be zero but it is probably something above 

zero but far less than approximately 20,000 lung cancer deaths per year.



My major point of my post is that take the dose and [upper bound] risk claims at 

face value for indoor radon as a starting point. How do we as a society spend our 

radiation protection resources to reduce radiation risk in some optimal way from 

all sources of radiation exposure and risk?



Do we spend extra hundreds of $$billions just on nuclear power plant waste 

disposal only to avoid trivial doses 10,000 years in the future or clean up minor 

contamination at former nuclear defense sites to some near background level? Or 

should we do sensible things in the present to operate nuclear power plants 

safely at reasonable cost, dispose of waste in ways that make sense on achieving 

minimal exposure at reasonable cost, and spend sensible sums of $ [thus saved] on 

radiation reduction in medical diagnosis and treatment [avoiding millions of 

person rems per year of useless and unnecessary radiation exposure vs. a few 

hundred person rem in operating 60+ nuclear plants  (aggregate) as well as from 

nuclear waste disposal] and other contributors to population radiation exposure 

like indoor radon from soil gas infiltration or radon entrained in well water 

[levels as high as many millions of pCi/liter in some parts of New England].





I find it droll to consider the granite kitchen counters in the kitchens of the 

"rich and famous". Would Barbra Streisandand , Cindy Crawford, Alec Baldwin of 

the Tooth Fairy Project or other celebs who I'd bet have tons of granite kitchen 

counters in their huge kitchens be so terrified and phobic about nuclear power 

radiation expousre alone, if they knew their granite counters are in essence  

radioactive waste resulting in direct gamma radiation and radon emission sources 

lung dose risks to them and their families far exceeding that which they might 

receive if living on top of or near a nuclear waste dump from the buried waste?



These are not facetious questions.  They deserve consideration by those both pro 

and anti-nuclear in making choices about what our society does to minimize 

[sometimes theoretical] risks. 



Stewart Farber, MS Public Health

===============

1/9/03 1:56:59 PM, "Richard L. Hess" <lists@richardhess.com> wrote:



>At 01:01 PM 01/09/2003 -0800, Stewart Farber wrote:

>>Subject: Fwd: AARST Radon Scientist Claim Nation's Policy a Failure - E-Wire

>>Environmental Press Release Distribution

>>Date: 1/9/03

>

>In case you think it's only folks songs that cause people like me to worry 

>about ionizing radiation...it's articles like these from "experts" that 

>cause the folk singers to write the songs <smile>.

>

>Stewart, of course, said something cogent in his posting about upper 

>bounds...but gosh, you know the people reading this don't know that kind of 

>stuff and don't want to learn it. Here's a scientist from a professional 

>organization charged with knowing about this and he says there will be more 

>deaths from this.

>

>Cheers,

>

>Richard

>

>







************************************************************************

You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To unsubscribe,

send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu  Put the text "unsubscribe

radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail, with no subject line.

You can view the Radsafe archives at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/