Re: Frontline Comment

[Jeff Eichorst <u112237@lanl.gov>]

Jim makes excellent points.  I certainly believe that the media is far from
excusable in their reporting of the "truth."  If they truly were interested
in disseminating valuable information to the public, the journalist would
learn what the words mean that they write and would then use those words in
a correct and meaningful way to communicate the ideas to the readers.  Not,
to impress the lay person with big, undefined words that sound horrific.

However, beyond that, I agree that the government is especially to blame -
particularly with the DOE.  Everyday, I see incidents that the DOE has
determined need to be reported as significant events.  These reports end up
in public reading rooms where journalist and other members of the public
have access (and actually do visit).  The message that we (DOE) send to the
public is that 500 dpm of contamination on someone's finger is as bad or
worse than a chemical burn on a technician's face.  We do this by, for
whatever reason the DOE has decided, elevating the perceived danger of these
contamination incidents regardless of potential health effects, when we only
report burns and other injuries if they result in inpatient hospitalization
or lost work days.  How can an ignorant member of society possibly come to
any other conclusion?  Either the DOE is unsafe in their radiological
practices and people get contaminated all of the time as compared to the
chemical handling processes, where seemingly nothing ever goes wrong (based
on number of occurrence reports), or contamination is much more serious than
harmful chemicals, and therefore, reported with greater diligence.

I submit that the organizations that have such reporting guidelines and
"openess" need to re-evaluate the message that they are sending to the
public to foster this unfounded fear and ignorance of radiation and related
concerns.





At 12:48 PM 4/23/97 -0500, you wrote:
>It was erroneous and misleading for the show to blame the media. Fear of
>radiation is the result of extreme gov't regulatory and program positions. The 
>media only reports them. 
>
>Until the HPS Position Statement that the data shows no justification to
>calculate risks below 5 rem/year, the only gov't position is that any
>radiation is harmful. EPA stated Monday afternoon in an open meeting with the
>NRC that NRCs standards would cause (something like) a 1 in 250 additional
>cancers over the EPA standards. NCRP and BEIR are committed to foster this
>perception in the absense of receiving a dose of scientific integrity.
>Richardson for the EPA, at the Risk Conference in Washington last week, said
>again that the science would make no difference, EPA will not abandon
>linearity. EPA will continue to misrepresent the radon data (its own data, not 
>just Bernie Cohen's more rigorous, comprehensive, and uncontroverted analysis) 
>in order to promulgate fear of radiation, including the secret and
>unscientific promulgation of the BEIR VI report now going on. 
>
>DOE suppressed the evidence of the Shipyard Workers Study, including its
>inclusion in the IARC study; and Hanford gets $100 million on "dose
>reconstruction" and "health effects research" from the release of (8-day)
>I-131 designed with a "public outreach program" with the sole purposeof
>promulgating public fear. After all, Hanford gets $1.5 Billion/year to "clean
>up" the site. They tell the Congress that they are protecting Oregon, without
>pointing out that r'vty down the river is millions of times less than the
>operating site, and billions of times less than natural r'vty down the river. 
>
>Don't blame the media for simply reporting what our appointed gov't officials
>and "scientists" tell them is truth. 
>
>If you want to bash ignorance, we can start closer to home :-)
>
>Regards, Jim Muckerheide
>jmuckerheide@delphi.com
>
>> This show demonstrated the ignorance of the general public in regards to
>> radiation safety, and more importantly the POWER of that ignorance.  In
>> most cases it would seem to be a "fear of the unknown".  The media has
>> produced this deeply embedded fear of nuclear technology, as "EXPERTS" in
>> the field, I believe it is our responsibility to eradicate those fears
>> through education.
>> 
>> Just my unsolicited opinion,
>> 
>> Jonathan Dyer
>> Radiation Safety Specialist
>> Brown University
>> 
>> >I couldn't believe the woman who was anti-nuclear stating that "natural"
>> >radiation wasn't the problem, it was the "manmade" stuff that she was
>> >concerned about.
>> >
>> >How many more of them are out there who don't understand?
>
>
Jeff Eichorst
Occurrence Investigator
Los Alamos National Laboratory
ESH-7, MS K999, Los Alamos, NM 87545
505.665-6980		505.665-6977 fax
505.996-1117 digital pager,	jeichorst@lanl.gov

"What will our descendants make of our decision to reject this awesome
source?  Will they applaud us for having the courage to say, 'no'"?  Or,
will they condemn us for surrendering to our fears?"
-  Richard Rhodes