Frontline and communicating with public

[JMUCKERHEIDE@delphi.com]

> One thing about the communication of dose I really caught note of was the 
> consistent use of millirems. Hundreds of thousands to cause harm,  
> thousands this and thousands that, not the use of rem and a conversion that 
> may be lost on a great number of "the public".  Very effective in 
> demonstrating relative levels.

I agree. Very important. I use it comparing 5 pCi/L Ra in water limits (say
~2000/yr @ 1.1 L/d) to the threshold for the radium population (Evans, HPJ
Suppl 44, 1983 50 uCi systemic intake, plus Rowland 1995 (20% uptake) = 250
uCi ingestion, 250 million pCi. (What do we spend to carefully monitor and
control Ra in water?) 

Then we have Eben Byers' roughly 10 million pCi/d Ra-226 eq for 3 years
(1928-1931), say ~1000 days, 5-10 billion pCi Ra-226 eq -  used by FDA to get
control and assume regulatory authority with no consideration of the
"overdose" characteristics of this politically convenient death (and never
examine the 1000's of people who had also ingested vast quantities of Ra!). 

They ignored longer lives and reports of beneficial effects, and constrained
efforts to do actual research; the same as EPA and DOE do today. 

Then to add insult to injury, a presentation as recent as Macklis 1993 (Sci
Am) "The Great Radium Scandal" uses this experience to caution about radon!?
Ha! 

While ignoring that DOE killed the radium studies Argonne "Center for Human
Radiobiology" in 1983 following Robley Evans report in HPJ, established to
follow this population throughout their lifetimes, with thousands of
radium-burdened persons still alive! And data that shows lower mortality
(Kondo 1993) 

As a pure "anecdote", John Neuberger reported in our Nov 96 sessions that the
effort to relate the dial painters' lung cancer to radon in the dial painting
studios(??) was complicated by the fact that the cohort of working women
population of the late-teens and early-1920's had a mean age of about 53, vs
the dial painters of about 77 (?)  This was not part of his formal
presentation. I don't know what documentation John has for this. Perhaps he
could confirm or reject my recollection. 

What's worse we all know DOE's response (or EPA or FDA or NRC or NCI or CDC or 
NIOSH or NIEHS or IARC or NCRP or ICRP or NRPB or ...) if asked to consider
supporting a study of this phenomenon :-)   

It would be the same as 1000's of other (even more reasonable :-)  requests to 
find objective answers.  They don't have any $$ for this (of course not, they
have to spend $100 million on I-131 from Hanford, ha!?  with $millions in
"public outreach" designed to foster public fear, like EPAs $millions to
promulgate fear of radon to support bureaucratic self-interest in authority
and 'contractors". And $$ to study dial painter lung cancer vs studio radon
exposure??  -signed 'desperate'  :-)  

> What was Ralph's connection to the French people's lack of fear, and a less 
> open court system? Hmmm....  : )

very good!
 
> Brian Rees
> brees@lanl.gov

Thanks.

Regards, Jim Muckerheide
jmuckerheide@delphi.com
Radiation, Science, and Health, Inc.