Re: Tooth Fairy (Project) Comes to Hackensack University Medical Center

[Steven Dapra <sjd@swcp.com>]

Nov. 15



	Bill Lipton wrote:



	"While I don't necessarily agree with either the purpose or goals of the

"Tooth Fairy Project," I am most disappointed in the responses I've seen on

Radsafe.  They seem to consist primarily of attacks on the motivations and

competence of those involved, rather than any semi-professional evaluation

of the work or the issues.  It seems that anyone who disagrees with 'the

party line' is attacked as biased or incompetent.



	"This knee jerk response does a great disservice to all of us.



	"At this point, the TSP seems to be in a data collecting stage.  Some

recommendations regarding methodology may be in order, but, regardless of

the motivations of the project participants, they deserve the right to

present their views."



My Comments:



	The motivation of the Tooth Fairy Project (TFP) is to gather "evidence" to

support its agenda of shutting down power reactors.  If that is not the

TPF's motivation (Bill), what is its motivation?



	Stewart Farber very aptly pointed out the following:



	" . . . the routine emissions of Sr-90 from any nuclear power plant are

insufficient to even maintain the existing environmental inventory of Sr-90

in the terrestrial or aquatic environment from earlier bomb test fallout in

the 1960s, never mind increase exposure to any person living in the

vicinity.  Each year the megacuries of Sr-90 which remain in the

environment from open air testing of nuclear weapons by the US and the

Soviets which ended in 1963, decay by an amount that far exceeds the sum of

all emissions from US nuclear power plants in the present or anytime in the

past.



	" . . . [edit] . . . Releases from today's nuclear plant operations CANNOT

KEEP THE CURRENT SR-90 environmental inventory constant never mind increase

overall exposure from Sr-90.



 	"The basic premise of the Tooth Fairy project that a few micro-Ci or

milli-Ci of Sr-90 release per year from any one nuclear power plant is

increasing Sr-90 exposure and cancer risk to children in the general

environment near a facility today, given the much, much greater [but still

trivial] amount of Sr-90 in the environment and diet from residual Sr-90 in

the environment from prior bomb test fallout, is simply absurd,

unscientific, and a fraud intended to promote an anti-nuclear agenda.



	Assuming that all this is true, and I suspect that it is, it seems to me

that RADSAFEers who are doing so would be remiss in <not> attacking the

competence of the TFP.  



	Bank robbers, car thieves, and people who support the legalization of

drugs also "deserve the right to present their views," but those of us who

know better should be prompt to point out in no uncertain terms that such

views are nonsense.



	I also endorse Jerry Cohen's Nov. 14 suggestion to Bill Lipton:  " . . .

perhaps you might offer a technically feasible explanation of how Sr-90 in

children's teeth might conceivably be indicative of releases from nuclear

power plants, particularly in light of  Sr-90 levels in global fallout.

Absent such a reasonable explanation, why would it matter what methods are

used to assess Sr-90 levels in children's teeth?"



Steven Dapra

sjd@swcp.com







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