Re: R. Morgans contr. to Linear Hypothesis IS the Cause of Public Fear of Radiat

[Schoenhofer <schoenho@via.at>]

At 11:37 11.10.1996 -0500, you wrote:
>> From:          Ronald Morgan <rgmorgan@lanl.gov>
>> To:            Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
>> Subject:       Re: Linear Hypothesis IS the Cause of Public Fear of Radiation
>........................................................................
>> 	 "Fire in radiation lab at Michael Reese Hospital. Fortunately no
radiation was released."

You are fortunate. I know quite a few papers and TV stations in Europe which
would write: "Authorities claim, that no radiation was released."

Do you know, what a severe accident in a nuclear power plant is? It is an
accident when a hammer hits the toe of a worker.

The latter one is black humor. To be serious - did you have enquiries from
the public? How did the public react? I can tell you only that to my
experience the public does not react directly. It is a slow process of
undermining the authority of scientists. Let me state again: We have similar
situations in many other fields - I disagree with anybody who claims that
the situation is unique  concerning nuclear power or radiation. At the
moment big campaigns are going on in Europe - I would be surprised if this
was not the case in the US - on the question of genetic engineering. N o b o
d y   can claim that there is a Linear Hypothesis in genetic engineering -
nevertheless people get crazy about it and are afraid - simply because the
media and certain groups tell them "to be afraid". There is no Linear
Hypothesis in the question of irradiation of food - people are nevertheless
crazy and afraid of consuming irradiated food. To my knowledge irradiation
of food is now allowed in the USA. Obviously the US authorities are quite
well informed and have made a reasonable decision. Maximum contaminant
levels are set for pesticides, for fungicides, for nitrate in water, for
chemicals at the working place: Nevertheless people regard these MCLs as
something the authorities have set to accomodate "the industry" and to harm
them for the sake of industrial profit. "As soon as some contaminant is
detactable it must be poisonous."

We have a lot of excellent scientists working in various national and
international committees. I am surprised by the many attacks on and the
disbelief in the US authorities - I always thought this was a European
speciality and for instance in the case of Sovjet authorities well
understandable. If a decision of the authorities does not suit our own
opinion we cannot simply ignore it and accuse the authorities of suppressing
other evidence and so on - we had enough examples of this kind during the
last - well is it not already weeks, not days? I know Bernhard Cohen - I
even had the privilege to meet him personally (he sure does not remember) -
and I think that his method of showing that an opinion opposed to his cannot
be correct is excellent. I use this method quite often myself. I know Roger
Clarke - I have met him personally and I think he remembers me - and I think
that he is as well an excellent scientist. I clearly say that: If we cannot
proof - and we cannot!- that there is a threshold, then we should be
cautious and assume no threshold to exist. What is so bad about it? The
levels of exposure, radionuclide incorporation etc. which are based on the
linear hypothesis are in a range, where I think it is ridiculous to even
discuss about it. Our Austrian Research Nuclear Installations have emissions
which are by orders of magnitude lower than the limits. In their own
interest companies should try to reduce the exposure of their workers - to
my knowledge there is no difficulty to do that also far below the limits, at
least reports from many countries show it. This seems to pose no
difficulties.  S o   w h y   t o   c o m p l a i n   a b o u t   l i m i t s ?

I have heard so many "scientists" telling people that they are stupid and do
not understand anything about nuclear power, so the public should better
shut up and not pose silly questions. I am not surprised about peoples reaction.

Franz
Schoenhofer
Habichergasse 31/7
A-1160 WIEN
AUSTRIA/EUROPE
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e-mail:		schoenho@via.at