[ RadSafe ] Hormesis - Necessary for Public Protection

[Gerry Blackwood]

There are a couple of additional points I would also like to make here.
 
One... none of the planning scenarios include operating under "Martial Law". And if anyone thinks for one moment that some 6 foot "bad guy" dragging a kidney dialysis machine around who we can't  find, is successful in detonating a 10 kiloton nuke in a major city that martial law would not be immediately declared is sadly mistaken. Yes there have been some drills that have had a martial law component added to it but lets face the facts here. For those who think that the USG would not override a Governor is an event such as this lets go back in history a little. Say October 2001..... Remember a intelligence asset code named "Dragon fire" who reported that a 10 kiloton nuke was in NYC. Tumbleweed at that time ordered NEST operational in NYC and kind of did not tell the Mayor of NYC or the Governor of NY State that, one... the threat existed and two....that he ordered NEST in. Luckily Dragon fire was wrong but it poses an interesting dilemma. Lets say that NEST found the package....
 what was it going to do? Call the Mayor's Office and tell him he had a slight problem? Attempt deactivation without anyone in NYC or State knowing?
 
Point two.... I am not a bio-ware fare guy but one of the problems I see with these scenarios are they seem to rely on a "Public Health System" for counter-measures. The problem is I never knew we had a Public Health System in the first place. 
 
Point Three. Why the concentration on response?  why isn’t “prevention” a priority.

Point Four.. If a nuke or WMD goes off, those training for response (first responders) are all dead…who will train? if a 10 Kiloton nuke goes off in NYC the first responders will be coming from Boston....

Point Five ..Makes one wonder why they list natural disasters like a quake and hurricanes but nothing about tornado's, floods.    Also, why do they not cite floods when it would be possible for terrorists to blow up dams or levees and flood vast tracts of land?  FEMA is part of DHS now but there should be some disconnect for natural disasters.  At most, have loose coordination and advise security if you see somebody trying to exploit vulnerabilities during such disasters.  

Point Six.. There nothing mentioned about attacks on power systems that could result in mass blackouts? Like this has not happened before? BTW where are we standing with the power grid these days?

Point Seven.... If you could get enough expertise and explosives together to pull it off, a nuke or other skillfully-placed charge could be placed inside a volcano in the Canary Islands, to cause a massive landslide.  The resulting tsunami is predicted to be capable of swamping the entire eastern seaboard of the US, from Florida to Maine.

Point Eight...There is no mention of attacks on LNG/LPG carriers.  Or wildfires.  The wildfires in San Diego and LA a little over a year ago were no accident and they were not all set off by careless hunters.  The IR mapping of the initial points of the fire showed three distinct cells of fire in a straight line, each a mile apart.  That is no accident.  And one fire in San Diego was put out, then re-started in an area where no embers from the major fire could have sparked flames either time.  The ignition point was right over the fence from the Islamic center that catered to the San Diego cell of the 9/11 hijackers just months after al-Qaeda had posted messages saying that they intended to "burn you in your homes." And DHS does not even list wildfires as a major disaster.

It would be one thing if this was a graphic merely put together by the typical media nitwit but this information is credited to DHS.  What are these people thinking? Lastly the military has an old saying... "No plan survives the initial contact in tact"....... We can do better than this.....

Just some of my humble opinions......

 



howard long <hflong at pacbell.net> wrote:
"Hormesis as likely as LNT"? We must be more explicit about INCREASED cancer and panic deaths from excess "clean up" after an attack, as currently planned by DHS.

I have just reviewed the DHS Planning Scenarios for nuclear attack kindly sent me by Gerry Blackwood. As much loss of life and cost appears likely from panic response as from the attack. Fear of actually beneficial doses of radiation is expected to cause, far beyond the area of radiation overdose, traffic disaster, lawlessness, avoidance of safe water, shelter and emergency supplies long after real danger from radiation. Chernobyl is still a wasteland because of fear, not actual danger for most of the area. 

LNT dinosaurs like John Jacobus stall realistic public protection.

Howard Long

If it fails at low doses as you say below, then it is a bankrupt concept. 
If you concede that, then what are we arguing about? All I put forward is 
the modest proposition that at very low doses, hormesis is about as likely 
as LNT to be true. You call it cherry picking when Long does it, but it is 
even worse cherry picking when EPA does it to support LNT based public 
policy that costs us all a huge fortune.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Jacobus" 
To: "Syd H. Levine" ; "howard long" 
; "Gerald Nicholls" ; 
; 
Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2005 6:08 PM
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Do better than John Snow's Work. Medical Ethics?


> Maybe I am not being clear. The LNT is a model, which
> can be changed. I feel that it does fail at low doses
> and dose rates.
>
> However, the proponents of hormesis what to have it
> their way. Hormesis is good. However, not all of the
> data supports that conjecture. If they jump and down,
> and yell about bias and "hidden" agendas by the
> radiation safety community, they expect to win. This
> is what I oppose.
>
> You say you do not believe in hormesis or the LNT, if
> would encourage you to keep and open mind and read
> both sides for the arguements. It took me a while to
> get where I am, and I am still learning.
>
> By the way, the fact the Earth is round was known
> since the times of the ancient Greeks. Why would
> anyone support such a silly notion.
>
> --- "Syd H. Levine" wrote:
>
>> The flat worlders need you to defend their position.
>> Maybe hormesis is a
>> load of crap with respect to ionizing radiation, but
>> to defend LNT at this
>> late date seems peculiar indeed.
>>
>> Syd H. Levine
>> AnaLog Services, Inc.
>> Phone: 270-276-5671
>> Telefax: 270-276-5588
>> E-mail: analog at logwell.com
>> URL: www.logwell.com
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "John Jacobus" 
>> To: "Syd H. Levine" ;
>> "howard long"
>> ; "Gerald Nicholls"
>> ;
>> ; 
>> Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2005 11:29 AM
>> Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Do better than John Snow's
>> Work. Medical Ethics?
>>
>>
>> >I will conceed that the LNT is a hypothesis that
>> > attempts to fit known data to some mathematic
>> model.
>> > Does it work in all cases? Within the limits of
>> the
>> > data, it is probably reasonable.


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