Re: Re[2]: Averill's Editorial

[stabin@esper.com (Mike Stabin)]

Dave Scherer wrote:

>This is political activism, not science.  It is my opinion that the health
>physics profession and the HPS should remain a professional, scientific
>society and not an activist group.  If organized health physics pursues this
>activist campaign without the support (and lead) of the radiobiology
>community, we risk our collective reputation.  Of course individuals have
>the same rights as any other citizen to help shape public policy.  But a
>word of caution may be in order:  If scientific judgement is affected by
>economic and regulatory concerns, we may share the fate of tobacco company
>toxicologists.

Isn't there a reverse problem here, though?  If HPs were to parallel tobacco
company scientists, wouldn't we be arguing that every little bit of
radiation is potentially harmful and should be carefully monitored?  The ANS
might want to argue for a threshold, and the only bias that one can suggest
is that HPs are heavily employed by the nuclear industry and so are
interested in its health.  But overall, if we are only interested in our
pocketbooks, I would think that you wouldn't be able to find an HP that
would argue that LNT might be flawed.

Mike Stabin
Oak Ridge