[ RadSafe ] Salsman RE: Gardner Sellafield cluster

[James Salsman]

Ivor Surveyor wrote:

>... the Dickinson H and Parker work which in fact is (or 
> should be) the end of the Gardner hypothesis.

They did rule out Leo Kinlen's population mixing infection
alternative hypothesis conclusively, but they reported only
about half the risk ratio that Gardner had reported.

The COMARE report -- to which Fred Dawson posted this link:
   http://www.comare.org.uk/reports/comare7threport.pdf
-- treats the controversy fairly, but it never considers or
even mentions the possibility of actinide metal contamination.
This is as close as it gets:

     7.8  It remains possible that an undiscovered factor was
     operating in Seascale in the 1950s and 1960s that added
     to or perhaps interacted synergistically with a dose-
     related radiation effect that would otherwise have been
     too small to measure....

I wonder if the Sellafield radiation worker parents could ask
the Depleted Uranium Oversight Board to measure their urine.

After all, if one group of safety researchers forgot that the
"not infrequently ignored" (according to Gmelin) oxidation of
U3O8 can produce monomeric uranium trioxide gas -- which is
essentially impossible to filter, takes years to settle out of
the air, and is at least as toxic as uranyl nitrate -- then it
stands to reason that another group might had missed it, too.

I wonder now that the UK has a freedom of information law, how
hard it would be to find out whether the Sellafield labs were
heating U3O8 above 1000 Celsius back in the 50s and 60s.

Sincerely,
James Salsman