letter to Washington Post

[Bernard L Cohen <blc+@pitt.edu>]

	In response to suggestions in e-mail discussion groups, I
submitted the following letter-to-the-editor to The Washington Post:

							May 13, 1997
LETTERS-TO-THE-EDITOR
The Washington Post
1150 15th St NW
Washington, DC 20071

Dear Sir:
	I am writing in response to the last three paragraphs of the
letter by Arlie Schardt in your May 9 Edition about the presumed health
effects of low level radiation. He states that the University of
Pittsburgh Study, which I directed, has been widely discredited. Nothing
published in the scientific literature (or anywhere else that I am aware
of) and no comments offered after my dozens of presentations at scientific
meetings all over the world have even claimed to offer an alternative
explanation of the data to our conclusion that current theories grossly
over-estimate the cancer risk from low level radiation. We have done
everything possible to stimulate suggestions for alternative explanations,
including offering consultant fees and large monetary rewards, but no
alternative suggestions have materialized. Mr. SchardtUs statement that we
did not account for housing, socioeconomic, and geographic factors shows
that he has not read our papers; we treated well over 60 potential
confounding factors, including several for housing and dozens for
socioeconomic status, and several dozen geographic areas were treated
individually.
	Mr. Schardt states that the official position paper of Health
Physics Society (HPS) rejecting estimates of risks from low level
radiation does not represent a consensus of HPS members. How can he
explain the fact that the position paper was prepared by the last five
past presidents of HPS and overwhelmingly approved by the HPS Board of
Directors? The current president of HPS is touring the country with a
lecture concluding that low level radiation is harmless.
	Mr. SchardtUs final paragraph implies that there is a difference
between natural and man-made radiation. When a DNA molecule in one of the
cells in our bodies is struck by a gamma ray or an alpha particle, there
is no possible way for that cell to RknowS whether that gamma ray or alpha
particle came from a natural phenomenon or from a man-made material. The
effects must therefore be the same -- every scientist agrees on that. Mr.
Schardt also implies that natural radiation is unavoidable; but our
predominant exposure to natural radiation is from radon in our homes, and
that is very easy to reduce.

					Sincerely Yours,



					Bernard L. Cohen
					Professor of Physics and
					Environmental and Occu-
					pational Health 

Bernard L. Cohen
Physics Dept.
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Tel: (412)624-9245
Fax: (412)624-9163
e-mail: blc+@pitt.edu