Cost of a Person-Sievert -- LNT and all that

[Joyce Davis <JOYCED@DNFSB.GOV>]

In this month's HP Journal there is an article by Guenther & Thein
"Estimated Cost of Person-Sv Exposure".  I just skimmed through it, and it
looks to me like something that deserves deeper reading and  discussion
by the HP community (on Radsafe and elsewhere).  Some questions:  1)
Is it reasonable to value a life ? (a philosophical question), 2) Is this a
proper use of BEIR/NCRP/ICRP/UNSCEAR risk coefficients? (a
quasi-technical question ?), and 3) What do they mean by
"conservative", and why should a conservative rather than a realistic
estimate be used in this cost/benefit context ? (a rhetorical question).
I'm more than a little troubled by this use of the tenuous data to produce
"hard" numbers, but I'd like to know what other radsafers  (the pro-,
anti-, and ??-LNTers) think.

P.S. It's interesting that this DOE-funded study  "strictly coincidentally"
came up with the same $2000/manrem as NRC is now using.

Only the opinion of
J. P. Davis
joyced@dnfsb.gov