Re: [MbrExchange] Re: NG blast (again)

[BLHamrick@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 4/28/2003 11:39:06 PM Pacific Standard Time, lists@richardhess.com writes:


> Where do we go from here? Who's correct? Who is the general public to believe? Why is the industry doing this to itself? Where IS the money trail to all this? Who is Alvin Weinberg? Why should someone believe him more than you?



Part of the problem is the issues are complex.  Both the public and politicians want a simple answer to "Is it safe?"  But, there is not a yes or no answer to this question.  The question back to them should be: "How much are you willing to pay to gamble that lower levels of radiation will actually make you "safer"?"


The LNT supposes that the risk associated with exposure to radiation increases (decreases) linearly with increasing (decreasing) exposure, such that any exposure above zero produces a non-zero increased risk.  This is actually the "fall back" model used for most carcinogens.


Theoretically, there is a risk associated with simply using the model, and that is the risk that there may in fact be no harm below a certain threshold, or even a benefit from exposure below a certain threshold.  Thus, by using the LNT, we may be oppressing beneficial uses of these materials, and expending vast amounts of monies to remove them from our envirnoment with no benefit, and with a definitive increased risk of harm to the beneficiaries of the oppressed uses, including cancer patients, victims of genetic, metabolic and other disorders or diseases; and, to those persons that would otherwise benefit from the monies spent on eliminating these "contaminants" from our environment.  


In addition, at least for radiation (and probably other environmental carcinogens), one must look at the relative risk of these "contaminants" from nature.  Does it make any sense to expend potentially billions of dollars nation-wide to remediate sites to a level that poses no more than an increased lifetime risk of one in ten thousand to one in a million (as CERCLA guidance recommends) when the nationwide risk of fatal cancer is somewhere around one in four to one in five?  The public needs to think carefully about this.  Politicians should too, but my personal experience is that they won't.  


Most lifetime risk estimates are based on exposure to the average member of the maximally exposed group, or the maximally exposed member of an average exposure group - either way, we're talking about persons that spend a substantial amount of time at a single contaminated site (e.g., 16 hours per day for 30 years, or 8 hours per day for 70 years, or something comparable), so at the outside, one might be talking about hypothetically increasing a single person's risk by a factor of 3 in 10,000 (i.e., 8 hour per day exposure at three residually contaminated sites).


Now, measure this against two things:  1)  The hypothetical lifetime risk of fatal cancer from natural background radiation using the LNT, which would be somewhere between of 2 in 1,000 and 2 in 100 (depending on where one lives), and 2) the very real fact that about 1 in 4, or 1 in 5 will definitely die of cancer.


So, not only are we trying to regulate risk to a level that is virtually meaningless in light of actual annual cancer deaths, but trying to regulate it to levels that are about 200 times below the hypothetical risk associated with the variation of natural background radiation.  In my opinion, this makes no sense irrespective of whether the LNT is valid or not.


An excellent book on this subject was written by U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Stephen Breyer, "Breaking the Vicious Cycle: Toward Effective Risk Regulation."  It's available on Amazon.com, and other online bookstores.  It's short, easy reading, and makes a lot of important, salient points.


As for following the money, I agree, follow it.  In California, my guess is it will lead to heavy contributions from the Hollywood "community" to politicians (or certain non-profit concerns) that use highly emotionally-charged issues that are too complicated for most people to critically understand to garner economic support.  That is, the headline, "Senator Smith saves Californians from deadly radiation," is much more valuable (perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars more valuable per campaign year) than "Senator Smith determines low levels of radioactivity aren't really all that harmful, maybe aren't harmful at all, or may be beneficial, relatively speaking."


Barbara L. Hamrick