[ RadSafe ] Letter to the Muskegon Chronicle

[Maury Siskel]

First, an unequivocal disclaimer -- I have no formal education as a 
health physicist or as a toxicologist. I do have a formal education in, 
have applied and published the results of scientific methodology.

Your political arguments have and will continue to strain at gnats 
trying all the while to avoid sounding political and similarly trying in 
vain to sound scientific. None of this horse hockey will change 
seriously how wars are conducted. The inhalation of gunpowder and its 
combustion products is not conducive to better health -- nor is lead. 
James, do you think that nations have generally foregone uses of mustard 
or other gases because of the politics or because of ill health effects? 
Wars generally employ that which is believed selfishly to be the most 
effective to subdue opponents. Wars are often prolonged and sometimes 
even lost in part because of the crap foisted off on the public by 
people like you, Rokke, and others.

When one starts delving into the claimed qualifications of individuals 
in order to substantiate their misguided assertions about DU, dioxin, 
winning or losing entire wars, and heaven only knows what other 
political tripe you desire, then you have departed the realm of science.

My scientific patience breaks when Dr. Rokke and similar folks (to be 
gentle) are invoked as authority figures to subdue people who are merely 
health physicists or merely (real honest-to-God) medical doctors to 
overwhelm these PhD amateurs having no scientific breadth. Some 
scientists are MD's, but few MD's receive serious education in science 
unless they pursue research after they have earned their MD degree. What 
ducktwaddle to model the claims of Dr. Rokke as a basis for ending the 
use of DU munitions! What a bitter joke for those tankers hit by DU 
rounds. Rokke is a political hero for an adversarial worldwide press and 
a political hero for anti-war, anti-administration elements. Rokke 
however, bears little relevance to scientific endeavors. If Rokke would 
be willing to share, one might consider joining his evangelism -- 
probably a great way to travel and live well....

My idealism will not be realized; the world simply does not work that 
way, but the invocation of science for these purposes is as silly and 
trivial as the invocation of gods as rationales for the Inquisition. 
Like any other tool, science can be and is used for all varieties of 
purposes. Acceptance of that fact is unavoidable, but such political and 
propaganda usage as is promoted by you, Rokke, and the like, is a 
prostitution of science, is offensive, and should be recognized as the 
ignoble activity it really is.
Cheers,
Maury&Dog (MaurySiskel maurysis at ev1.net)


================
James Salsman wrote:

> Robert N. Cherry, Jr., wrote in a Letter to the Editor
> of the Muskegon Chronicle:
>
>> ... To help you get started on your research, ask some folks
>> in the Nuclear Engineering Department at the University
>> of Michigan (for example, Dr. Kearfott) or UM’s Radiation
>> Safety Service (for example, Dr. Mark Driscoll) for an
>> educated opinion on the potential biological effects of DU.
>
>
> The chemical toxicity resulting from depleted uranium
> inhalation exposure is several orders of magnitude more
> hazardous than its radiological effects, so I recommend

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