Re: Newspaper article on Plutonium

[Brian Gaulke <Brian_Gaulke.HWC@inet.hwc.ca>]

To: ghofferb @ scientech.com (George Hofferber) @ INET

If you had shown a little more patience you would have seen me cite the source 
for my data (http://www.hwc.ca/hpb/lcdc/bc/96stats/index2.html).  You could, as 
others did, simply ask for my source.  Instead, you chose to make what I think 
can reasonably be construed as a public ad hominem attack on me.

As for the source for your data on my qualifications, it is both incorrect and 
incomplete.  I was granted a comprehensive certification in 1994, and that was 
only because I didn't choose to pursue certification earlier in my now 15.5 
year career in health physics which includes experience in industrial, 
laboratory, and reactor environments in addition to my current work in 
dosimetry with Health Canada (the disseminator of the data I quoted).

However, I am a firm believer that degrees, diplomas, certifications, licenses, 
etc. do not make people right or competent.  I am essentially self-taught in 
the health physics field (a total of 6 weeks of formal training in my career), 
and yet I have found myself to be technically superior to most of the HPs I've 
worked with whether they were degreed in health physics or not.

As for Bernie Cohen, I respect him all to hell and he wouldn't know me from a 
hole in the ground, but he was still wrong about the cancer statistics based on 
my sources, and I'm not going to let his stature or my respect for him cloud my 
judgement on the facts.