Access to Energy and Bernie Cohen

[xat@inel.gov (Alden Tschaeche)]

There is a monthly newsletter available called "Access to Energy"
published and edited by Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, President and Research
Professor, Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.  $35/yr (Canada
$37, overseas, by air mail only, $40) Order from Access to Energy, Box
1250, Cave Junction OR 97523.  The February, 1997 issue contains an
article "Cancer Postponement with Radon" that talks very cogently about
Dr. Bernard L. Cohen's work as published in Health Physics (vol 72, No.
1 and earlier publications) and others.  One of Dr. Robinson's comments
is: "Why are we not reading about Cohen's work in The Wall Street
Journal and the Reader's Digest?"  Why indeed?  

Another comment is: "The conclusion (from Dr. Cohen's work) to be drawn
is that, if you live in a home with radon levels higher than normal (but
not rediculously high, which is rare), you have a lower than normal
chance of contracting lung cancer."

With respect to the linear hypothesis, Dr. Robinson states: "Not only
has this hypothesis never been experimentally verified, it has now been
experimentally shown to be not true.  It turns out that radiation in
moderate amounts is actually beneficial to health."  So, why don't we
all sound the trumpets and tell the public the good news?

Dr. Robinson's concluding statement is: "We now do know, however, that
low level radiation is not harmful to us and that, in all cases studied
so far, it is actually beneficial to our health.  This is a wonderful
discovery.  It is also very damaging to the machinations of those whose
antiradiation propaganda has diminished our access to nuclear energy."

Another article in the same issue, "Meta-Errors" criticizes the Lubin
and Boice paper "Lung Cancer Risk From Residential Radon: Meta-analysis
of EightEpidemiologic Studies" J. National Cancer Institute 89, No 1,
pp49-57, January, 1997.  Dr. Robinson"s concluding remark about this
paper is: "This 'meta-analysis' proves nothing except that the
tax-financed denizens of the National Cancer Institute are becoming so
nervous about Cohen's results that they are willing to publish virtually
anything that claims to be a refutation.  NCI is entirely dependent for
funds upon the Clinton Administrations.  This Administration is filled
from top to bottom with 1960's radical agitators who are 'anti-nuke' to
the core."

If you want to read the whole issue, subscribe.  Al Tschaeche
xat@inel.gov