RE: Niagara Falls Electromet

[Steven Dapra <sjd@swcp.com>]

June 6



	My thanks to Susan Gawarecki for posting the link to "The Bomb That Fell

on Niagara," co-authored by Geoff Kelly and Lewis Ricciuti.



	Their article is full of provocative and tendentious assertions, as well

as a lot of material about coverups by government agencies at all levels.

I find some of the cover-up assertions to be plausible.



	The Kelly and Ricciuti article is posted on the web site of the "Tokyo

Physicians for Elimination of Nuclear Weapons" (TPENW).  The site has links

to the International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War, Physicians

for Social Responsibility, and like-minded organizations.



	The TPENW site has an internal link to the article "Chronic Low-Dose

Radioactive Exposure: False Alarm or Public Health Hazard?" by Wolfgang

Koehnlein. Director of the Institute for Radiation Biology, University of

Muenster, 48129 Muenster, Robert-Koch-Strasse 43, Germany and Rudi H.

Nussbaum, Portland State University, Portland OR 97205-0751/USA.



	Near the beginning of this article (right before its Table 1), we read:



	"In the literature there are numerous statements of experts and expert

commissions who consider the existence of a threshold dose with low LET

radiation as real [1, 2, 3]."



	The references are:



1.Gilbert ES, Omohundro E, Buchanan JA et al. Mortality of workers at the

Hanford site: 1945-1986, Health Phys. 64, 577 - 590,1993



2.Cardis E, Gilbert ES, Carpenter L. et al. Direct estimates of cancer

mortality due to low doses of ionising radiation; an international study.

Lancet 344,1039 - 1043,1994



3.Goldman M. Cancer risk of low-level exposure, Science 271 1821 - 1822,1996



	The paper by Gilbert, et. al. does not appear to say anything about

thresholds and low LET radiation, at least there is nothing in the

Discussion about thresholds and low LET, nor is there anything in the

Introduction.  The Abstract begins, "Updated analyses of mortality of

workers at the Hanford site provide little evidence of a positive

correlation of cumulative occupational radiation dose and mortality from

leukemia and from all cancer except leukemia."



	Marvin Goldman's article in Science calls for a re-assessment of the claim

that low-level exposure is harmful.  He points out that cancer rates in

regions with high-level exposure are no greater than in regions with

low-level exposure, he supports hormesis, and he says we should consider

implementing a concept of negligible risk.  His article does not appear to

support the idea of thresholds at low LET.  (I haven't read the Lancet paper.)



	What we seem to have in Lewis Ricciuti is another professional anti-nuker

who can make charges but can't back them up, a lot like the denizens of the

Tooth Fairy project.



Steven Dapra

sjd@swcp.com







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