Re: Request of Information

[muckerheide@highway1.com (James Muckerheide)]

Bob Flood wrote:
> 
> At 06:07 PM 2/26/97 -0600, Jim Muckerheide wrote:

> >All this is true, but doesn't deal at all with the confounding factors of
> >other pollutants in the early mines, which have been found to be MUCH more
> >toxic/carcinogenic than radon.
> 
> Agreed. I really meant my reply as an aside rather than an alternative
> explanation.
> 
> >But:  Why only "mis-treat" the radium population when the radon population
> >can generate so much more "interest"? small investment, large return  :-)
> 
> I find the reason rather simple: in a free enterprise economy that has been
> combined with a free press, we get a news industry in which bad news is big
> business. And, in an industry with more reporters than news, the
> competition to get one's work on the air or into print is intense, and
> those that fail to do so end up out of work. So, pandering to a public's
> unnecessary fear of radiation is an easy way for a reporter to get a story
> on the air/printed, thus justifying the reporter's existense.

I agree. But it is government, using ICRP, NCRP and BEIR, that are
committed to maintain the fear-of-radiation "free enterprise economy",
using the free press, with EPA pushing the "fear of radon" with an
effective $multi-million dollar PR campaign get reports to the media of
entire country when, yet another, mathematical projection (by a
mathematician!?) from miner data "finds" that "14,000 deaths are
associated with radon" (from an article "instantly" published in the
JNCI). The reporters in the entire country didn't just make this up! (An
EPA person trashed Cohen's work, unnamed and providing no technical
basis and disinformation about the "scientific conclusions", just this
week to a Fort Collins CO audience to support a costly radon home
monitoring campaign). The "reporter" role for this is that of little
more than a willing pawn.

If we objectively consider the science, the reporters can do their
thing. Many fear-mongers exist in many arenas. It's only when gov't
"officials" confirm the fear, and use the public fear for their own
ends, that the public is convinced that there is a real threat. This has
been true ever since the FDA used Eben Byers death in 1932 to get
regulatory control of radiation, and never reported on the lack of
effects in the thousands of people that had significantly used radium
and other radiation applications, and never considered Byers' death to
be associated with an "overdose" (recall, he died quickly with bone
necrosis and complications from drinking a rough estimate of 10 mCi/day
equivalent for 3 years!). Gov't dominance due to the AEA, with the lack
of industry doing any of its own science (and gov't suppression of
funding and publishing of contrary evidence) led to absense of objective
research and assessment. The science that has gotten through is
overwhelmingly contrary to the LNTH. This will become increasingly
evident in the next year, and explanations by many of the defenders of
this charade will be interesting. (There's an interesting line between
support because I "fear for my job" and "..."

> Bob Flood
> Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
> (415) 926-3793     bflood@slac.stanford.edu
> Unless otherwise noted, all opinions are mine alone.

Thanks.

Regards, Jim Muckerheide
jmuckerheide@delphi.com