Re:NJ incident

[JMUCKERHEIDE@delphi.com]

Thank you Wade Patterson. I thought no one would seriously decry the exercise
of blaming the media and educators for believing what *we* tell them. 

If the 'rock' were LLW there would be massive HP and regulatory response. It
certainly exceeds the 'releases' against which LLW sites are designed (for
massive PUBLIC expense and regulator/industry income). EPA says such rad
sources kill many people every year (eg, their comments to NRC on allowing 25
mrem/yr instead of 15 mrem/year. NCRP says risk is counted from 1 mrem/year.
Sinclair objected to 10 mrem/year as BRC. 

In the truck with *new* fuel accident, everyone with a geiger counter and a
corporate or gov't bureaucracy raced to the scene! The mayor was outraged that 
the truck was "stored" overnight at a local airforce base before being
returned to the fabricator. NRC didn't explain the inconsequential rad sources 
compared to natural sources in Yankee Rowe site and components for
decommissioning - they "explained" that they would take thousands of hours of
review and approval to assure that the public was 'safe'. 
Discussions regularly occur on this list of straining at exposures that are
equivalent to this rock. (If you can measure it you can spend hours on it; in
fact, you can spend hours figuring out if and how to measure it :-) 

We have met the enemy and he is us.

I believe in the integrity of every *individual* that has decried this
performance by responsible school and other officials (and most haz responder
training is quite practical and good). BUT most of these individuals live in,
and accept, an environment that intentionally promulgates these unfounded
fears to the public for self-interest, bureaucratic power and funding.
(Management counts 'success' as billable hours and 'satisfying the customer'.) 
 

When another DOE contract is let to a contractor to clean dust off of dirt,
and they want to hire HP's (to con the public into believing that they are
being protected from significant hazards, at great cost) I congratulate those
who see such employment as irresponsible, and more so to those who take such
positions and apply *professional* determinations to results rather than
simply join the raid, or worse, join in the game of fostering public fear to
enhance roles, functions, and funds. 

Only after we have targeted our own promulgators of public disinformation, can 
we carry that message to the media and the educators. To go to the school
today and explain that a little radiation is ok, is to take a position to
*reject* the positions of the standards-bodies and our federal agencies. It
should be explicitly stated. 

As a Member of the HPS, you can carry that message with the pride that the HPS 
SPI (Presidents) and Board have the unique distinction of taking that precise
position, in public, in its Position Statement on Risk issued last March. It
is time that the HP community followed that lead and objected vocally to the
15 mrem vs 25 mrem, and the dishonest NCRP and BEIR studies by a few
"leaders". 

Note that the highly-controlled BEIR VI "Committee" announced last spring that 
they would destroy Cohen's studies and all other residential, environmental
and medical radon studies to support the linear model from the highly
confounded and manipulated uranium miner studies. (Note Nobel Laureate Rozalyn 
Yalow's destruction of the basis for the application of these studies, among
many others. Also many who have failed to get funding support to resolve
confounding. And the great work of Dr. Saccomanno in Colorado.) 

It's recently been announced that this foregone conclusion "review" will be
promulgated in the next few weeks contrary to the science. (Note that Robley
Evans' destruction of the scientific work of the first (1972) BEIR report in
the HPJ, 1974, only BEIR III came close to scientific credibility - BEIR V can 
only be called "damage control" with dozens of cases of misrepresenting its
own data, much less failing to consider actual evidence from substantial
studies and the literature.) All this in the name of funding $100s Billions
from the gullible public, just like the people in the NJ school. Don't blame
them. 

Thanks.

Regards, Jim Muckerheide
jmuckerheide@delphi.com
Radiation, Science, and Health, Inc.
(We seek interest by "Supporters", and applications for full Member status
from the knowledgeable, independent, scientists and public policy experts who
are joining to demand an honest and objective assessment of the data. We call
on responsible professionals to acknowledge the statements by hundreds of
knowledgeable scientists, whose work is explicitly ignored and suppressed by
the rad protection interests that reflect the information on intentional bias
and manipulation from the personal experience of UNSCEAR and ICRP member Prof
Dr Gunnar Walinder, and his stated conviction that "I do not hesitate to say
that this is the greatest scientific scandal in this century".) 

> Group:
> 
> Could it be that the wearing of Pb aprons, and the other manifestations
> of fear, were the result of the health physics community believing and
> adopting the dogma that, "a single event at the cellular level can give
> rise to cancer?
> 
> It seems very likely to me.
> 
> If so, who can we blame but ourselves ?
> 
> Here are my thoughts on public perception and radiation.
> 
> 1.  It is our responsibility as professionals and scientists to:
> a. describe actual observations
> b. explain them, if possible, and to
> c. speak out.
> 
> 2.  Refutation is unnecessary. "Fitting" to a model is unnecessary. An
> informed public can judge for themselves.
> 
> 3.  The key to an informed public, and an informed legislative, judicial
> and executive government is knowledge of the actual unfitted
> experimental observations.
> 
> 4.  Intelligent decisions cannot be made without such knowledge.
> 
> 5.  Honesty and ethics demand that a clear description be given of
> actual observations without "fitting."
> 
> 6.  Explanations of "risk" and putting "data" in "perspective" are
> counter-productive.  So is an "explanation" of "statistics."  So are
> statements that people need to be "educated."
> 
> 7.  It is impossible to over-emphasize the importance of cognizance of
> actual (unfitted) human response to radiation.
> 
> 8.  The present perceptions of the public, of professionals, and of
> officials are a direct result of being unaware of actual observations of
> human response to radiation. The present perceptions are a result of
> seeing the "fitted" data rather than actual data.
> 
> 9.  A non-biased description of actual observations is that at first the
> incidence of human cancer decreases with increasing exposure to
> radiation, then reaches a minimum, and finally begins to rise.
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> -- 
> Wade
> 
> mailto:hwade@triax.com
> 
> H.Wade Patterson
> 1116 Linda Lane
> Lakeview OR 97630
> ph 541 947-4974