Re: Science and LNT

[John Jacobus <crispy_bird@YAHOO.COM>]

Howard,

Unfortunately, regulations are not medicine.  Issues

like exposure controls, EPA decommission, etc. are

codified.



In medicine you have a wide latitude to make decisions

on whether or not to operate.  You should be grateful

you do have to deal with interpretation of regulations

and periodic inspections.  (When was the last time

inspections reviewed your records on how you treated

your patients?)



--- Howard Long <hflong@pacbell.net> wrote:

> LNT is NOT "the best we can do today- unless that

> possibility [it disproven]

> were a virtual certainty".

> 

> Do you have "virtual certainty" of safety when you

> drive your car?

> 

> What is the harm from NOT driving your car, or of

> NOT having the now likely

> benefit of 10 X the usual background radiation (less

> cancer and better

> longevity)?

> 

> Is it prudent to not operate on appendicitis because

> of the risk of surgery?

> Sometimes.

> Competent risk analysis requires the 2-tail test,

> weighing BENEFIT against

> harm and considering individual variation.

> 

> . . .



=====

"Self-criticism is the secret weapon of democracy, and candor and confession are good for the public soul."

Adlai Stevenson



-- John

John Jacobus, MS

Certified Health Physicist

e-mail:  crispy_bird@yahoo.com



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