Re: Linear Hypothesis IS the Cause of Public Fear of Radiation

[Keith Welch <welch@CEBAF.GOV>]

At 11:21 AM 10/10/96 -0500, you wrote:
>
>At Los Alamos, there is a fruit tree on the site of the original (wartime)
>technical area.  The fuit of this tree contains detectable amounts of Pu,
>though eating all the fruit from this tree would result in less than 1 mrem
>CEDE.  I ask myself: knowing everything that I know, how would I feel about
>eating the fruit from this tree?  In considering this question I have come
>to realise that I am not 100% rational.
>

That's a good point.  But maybe you are rational - why should you eat apples
from that tree when there is no need to?  You can get apples anywhere.  If
there was some benefit from eating these particular apples versus some other
apples, then I'd say, go for it.  But all things being equal, I don't think
I'd go seek out those apples just "because".  Would that be ALARA?  (Oh no,
not the "A" word)  Of course there's no need to specifically avoid them in
this case.

This is another area where "we" have failed, and it affects the public's
fears.  We have not done an adequate job of relating the benefits of those
technologies which utilize or produce radioactivity/radiation - we've not
made our apples more appealing, so that people eat them even though they
have a touch of the "bad stuff" in them.  I think what has kept us from
doing this is that when you promote those activities as being beneficial,
you become a "pro-nuke" and that label is also something that has a very
corrupted meaning to it.  We also often feel that it is somehow a conflict
of interest (or appears so to others) to promote things nuclear when we are
in the business of protecting people from radiation.  In a rational world,
this would not be a problem.  Promoting nuclear power as a viable, clean
energy source of course does not mean that you have no regard for radiation
hazards.
Keith Welch
Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility
Newport News VA
welch@cebaf.gov