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Re: Radium article
Although your facts may be INCONTRAVERTABLE [sic - I think you mean "incontrovertible"], your response is highly misleading:
While radium is created by natural processes, human activities change its form and location. While radium, undisturbed in the earth, may be harmless, when concentrated as a source, or dumped on the environment as mill tailings, for example, it may have significant environmental impact. Indeed, TENORM is often a serious problem.
How did you reach your generalizations:
"Most of the people on the ANTI side of radiation stand to make money in some way from their case, whether it be research funds or by lawsuits.
Most of the PRO’s actually stand to LOSE money if limits were loosened, as there would not be as many personnel needed to monitor these things."?
Since you are a scientist, you have undoubtedly researched this thoroughly. Please let us know of some of your documentation.
Saying that, since 25-30% of the population gets cancer anyway, what's a few more from radiation, is the equivalent of saying that we should not make a fuss over someone killed by a drunk driver, since thousands are killed in auto accidents, anyway.
Even worse than your misleading presentation of "facts" is your self-righteous and strident tone. If your purpose is to turn the public against nuclear technology, you are succeeding very well. As someone who wishes to promote it's beneficial use, I am less concerned with antinuke rhetoric than with self-proclaimed "spokesmen" for the industry.
The opinions expressed are strictly mine.
It's not about dose, it's about trust.
Curies forever.
Bill Lipton
liptonw@dteenergy.com
rurban@jason.com wrote:
> Here are my comments to the reporter, followed by his response... I'll at least give that he is the most well versed reporter (albeit, of incomplete, one sided information) that I have ever seen in responses posted to radsafe, and he MAY have a point, although arrived at erroniously.
> At the very least, he seems open to further 'Enlightenment'.....
>
> Dear Sir,
>
> For the un-educated masses, NONE of the following INCONTRAVERTABLE FACTS could have been learned from your article:
>
> That the source of this radium is ENTIRELY natural.
> That it has been there literally since the beginning of time
> That it continues to be produced by the NATURAL processes of the universe.
> That people throughout the world have been consuming radium at these and sometimes MUCH higher levels for ALL that time, prior to it ever being measurable by EPA standards, or indeed even being discovered as an element by Marie Curie.
> That there is NOTHING the EPA, Sternglass, politicians, or any tree hugging environmentalist can do to reduce the amount of radium in the environment.
> That every person in the U.S. already has a chance of contracting some form of cancer of between 1 in 3 to 4, from all causes.
> That any EPA 1 in 10,000 limit is a statistic, derived from numerous conservative estimates (linear no-threshold or LNT), rather than from any true case study, iow, there has never been a study to test anything based on 1 case in 10,000. Obesity alone may account for 20% of all cancer deaths in U.S. women.
>
> I could go on, but I hope you are getting the gist of what I am trying to get to.
>
> Most of the people on the ANTI side of radiation stand to make money in some way from their case, whether it be research funds or by lawsuits.
>
> Most of the PRO’s actually stand to LOSE money if limits were loosened, as there would not be as many personnel needed to monitor these things.
>
> I suggest you do some further investigations into the vast debates of radiation safety, especially Low Level Radiation.
>
> Some suggested websearch’s would start with
>
> Why Files http://whyfiles.org/020radiation/index.html
>
> The BELLE website http://www.belleonline.com/index.html
>
> Or the excellent article by Bernard Cohen, PhD http://www.haciendapub.com/article50.html
>
> Or a yahoo search http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=hormesis&ei=UTF-8&fr=fp-top
>
> Richard D. Urban Jr.
> Yuma, AZ
>
>
> Mr. Urban,
>
> Thank you very much for your e-mail, and the time and thought you obviously put into it. I am always pleased when readers weigh in with informed, thoughtful comments on a difficult topic such as this. I will access the Web site addresses you sent me. Thanks.
>
> I'm not sure if you saw all three days of our series. If not, you can view them at www.pensacolanewsjournal.com. It's important you look at the whole thing, not just Sunday.
>
> In the three-day series, we explored how the source of the radium likely came from the Agrico Chemical Co. fertilizer plant, although that is still being studied. The old fertilizer plant played a role, of that it is clear, in the radium contamination of public wells. The radium was not all natural. One theory held by experts is that the sulfuric acid in the underground plume dislodged, for lack of a better term, the radium in the rocks, sending it straight into the aquifer.
>
> We also had information about the history of radium, how Roman artisans and miners succumbed to radium poisoning hundreds, even thousands, of years ago. (Most of the miners had what is now known as lung cancer, probably from radon gas.)
>
> You are correct to point out that we are exposed to radium all the time, and that, indeed, our atmosphere would never had developed without the nuclear furnace at the core of the Earth. However, it is not correct to say humans have consumed large amounts of radium "all the time." The key word here is "consumed." Once ingested, ionizing radiation can do extreme damage to internal organs. Radium, as you no doubt know, does not emit enough energy to penetrate the skin, so the radium in the lake where you swim, in the granite countertops in your kitchen, and in the X-rays at the dentist's office are negligible. It's when we consume the radium, which the body mistakes for calcium and deposits in the bones, that real problems can, and do, occur.
>
> As for the EPA standards, you are right to note they were devised using a linear model, and are science's best guess. You are right that one out of every three Americans will develop cancer in their lifetime. Of those, roughly 25 percent will die. With all the factors affecting development of cancer, from obesity, to smoking and diet, to other toxins in the air and water, why would we want to permit yet another toxin to add to the body burden we already assume? Even if only three people, or six people, or 12 people in the Pensacola area develop cancer as a result of the radium-tainted water (a small percentage of the population, to be sure), that's still three, six or 12 people. These are people, not statistics. We cannot eliminate radium from the groundwater, but we CAN all but eliminate it from our drinking water. The whole point of the series was to show how poorly the situation was handled by our public leaders, especially the public water utility, which had tapwater s
amples in
> hand but kept them quiet. The public had a right to know these things, and were never told. If you are OK with the fact that elementary school children were drinking water, coming out of the water fountain, that had concentrations of 6 and 7 picocuries per liter of combined radium 226/228, then that is certainly your opinion and I respect your right to hold it. Me, I believe the public deserved the right to know.
>
> I will read the Internet information you gave me, and appreciate you sending that my way.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Scott Streater