Otto Raabe's Post Decoded

[presley.j@atomcon.gc.ca]

Radsafers

I have dedecoded Dr. Raabe's post and pasted as
ASCII text in the body of this message for those
who may not have access to WWW.
(Of course the original fonts and formatting
have been lost in this process)

Jim Presley
Health Physicist
Atomic Energy Control Board
presley.j@atomcon.gc.ca


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Quotes from the 1/9/98 Montel Williams TV Program : "Children With 
Cancer"
PERSONAL NOTES OF OTTO RAABE, DAVIS, CA

Those involved:     Alec Baldwin (actor),  whose mother is a "breast 
cancer survivor".
               Helen Caldicott (physician), a dedicated anti-nuclear 
activist.
               Randy Snell, parent of child with rabdomyosarcoma.
               Kenny, eight-year old with cancer.
               Jay Schlichtman, lawyer who won MA chemical contamination 
case                and is featured in a book and new movie entitled "A 
Civil Action"..

This show featured numerous and repetative pictures children suffering 
from cancer, a
funeral casket, and and other heart-wrenching images.

Williams, about Baldwin: "This man stands for what he believes and 
believes what he stands
for."

Baldwin: "Reportedly the instances of breast cancer in Nassau and 
Suffolk Counties on Long
Island are the highest in the United States." He is now "looking more 
aggressively for causal
links..." He is active with "STAR, Standing for Truth About 
Radiation,"...which has been
organized "out on Long Island where (he) lives with his wife (Kim 
Bassinger)." The "STAR
Foundation" is investigating "contamination through nuclear radiation 
from Brookhaven
which is discharging nuclear waste out there into the environment." 

Williams: Don't be complacent if you don't live on Long Island. "The 
food that you eat
possibly comes from Long Island." "...what's going on right now the 
nation needs to get
angry about and we need to all become activists because there are 
nuclear power plants in
almost every little corner of America."

Baldwin: (We) "...don't want (our) beaches contaminated with nuclear 
radiation." (We are)
"...dealing with cancer that we believe and scientists believe is caused 
by exposure to low
levels of radiation." "I don't want anyone here to have this form of 
cancer" that we are
dealing with. "There are too many children who have cancer on Long 
Island and someone
has to do something to stop it now."

Parent of a child with rabdomyosarcoma: About this cancer they told us 
that "...it was one
in a million, and I'm finding out right now that it is definitely not 
one in a million, I'm finding
one a mile away, two miles away...."

Snell: "The current levels of radiation should be lowered six to eight 
times, and if these
studies are true, then the water that we are drinking in killing them 
(the children)...."

Williams: Using graphic: "...in a 15 mile radius on Long Island there 
are eight cases of
cancer (rabdomyosarcoma) right now...or about "...three hundred times 
the national average
on Long Island!" The locations shown on Long Island on graphic map: 
Stonybrook,
Smithtown, Setauket, Patchoque, Mastic, St. James, Southhampton, and  
Manorwille.

Snell: "I spoke to a doctor from the University of Pittsburgh. He's the 
world renown expert
on rabdomyosarcoma. He told me that the cause was radiation exposure, 
low level radiation
exposure." "The only thing around us is Brookhaven National Laboratory 
that is creating this
radiation. " "A congressional investigator (said to me), 'Did you ever 
think that you would
have to live with additional risk because of the good the Laboratory 
does for the entire
country?'"

Kenny: "My name is Kenny. I'm eight years old. I got cancer from the 
water...I'm going to
be nine soon and I have been fighting cancer for two years already."

Father whose twin boys both died at age five of promyelocytic leukemia: 
"At the time of
conception (we) lived in Ridge, which is in the general areas of 
Brookhaven National
Laboratory but closer to Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant." "I believe it 
(the cancer cause)
came from the drinking water. We had well water out in that area." "We 
would be happy if
a private (objective) group would investigate Brookhaven and say it is 
wrong. We need
independent researchers (to find out) what is the level of 
contamination."

Caldicott, when asked what Brookhaven does: "Brookhaven...designs 
nuclear weapons and
reactors. That's what it does."

Caldicott, when asked about Brookhaven reactor: "It has three reactors. 
One was very
filthy..., had a major failure, and ...shut down in '68, but released 
huge amounts of radiation
into the air and water. It's got a small medical reactor, and it's got a 
high flux beam reactor,
which is currently shut down because of ..." leaks in the spent fuel 
storage pool. "Hugh
amounts of water leaked for 15 years, and they knew it was 
leaking...containing tritium and
other radioactive materials towards the south boundary where people 
live...." "It enters the
water so it enters the...aquifer where we all get out drinking water." 
"...and the stuff is
migrating off site including solvents, chemicals that cause cancer, 
too." "So, the combination
of solvents and the radioactive materials work in what's called a 
synergistic way. One
potentiates or increases the effect of the other. One and one doesn't 
equal two cancers, but
one and one sort of equals 10 in the human body."
     "They (Brookhaven) have a huge stack 100 meters high that send 
tritium into the air."
"It concentrates in potatoes...that are transported all over the 
country." "Tritium gets into the
genes...changing the genes and causing cancer." There is an "...epidemic 
of breast cancer on
the eastern end of Long Island!." Rabdomyosarcoma also.
     The country has "...40,000 nuclear waste dumps" and many "nuclear 
power plants."


Williams, uses U.S. map showing locations of nuclear power plants and 
overlaid with areas
of "highest cancer rates".  The cancer risk is "...laying all over the 
top of the (nuclear)
plants...all over America!" "This is going to be America's nightmare!"

Caldicott: "This is the best show I have ever been on, Montel. It's 
brilliant! I had to say...."

Schlichtmann: "It took 18 years ...but (eventually) the Federal 
government declared that the
water was responsible for the history of leukemia in Wuburn (MA)." There 
the children with
leukemia "...caused by the water...." "It took 18 years for the 
government to admit it was
wrong." 

Caldicott, concerning the statement by William E. Gunther, Interim 
Associate Director for
Health, Safety, and Security at Brookhaven National Laboratory that 
there was no serious
releases to the environment: "He's a physicist talking about medicine. 
Physicists don't
understand biology, genetics, pediatrics, or medicine!" "How is he going 
to feel on his death
bed when he is dying of cancer? huh? They MUST be shut down! Now they're 
putting
tritium into the air. It's hard to get it out of the aquifer. They're 
evaporating it from a pond,
a one acre pond, into the air. When you're enveoped in a cloud of 
tritium water, it goes
straight through the skin; 90% is absorbed through the skin and lungs 
and it will start
circulating in your body. Better to leave it in the aquifer than to put 
it into the air!"

Baldwin: "The lab is not going to give the answers readily. We are going 
to fight them. When
are they going to let an independent investigation team come in here and 
make a
determination that we would respect...determine the level of 
contamination and its
ramifications on Long Island?" "WE have to fight these people because 
our children are
going to become ill. Our children are going to get cancer. Our children 
are going to get sick.
These people are not going to voluntarily cough up the information that 
we want. We have
to go in and fight them and we have to take it from them!" "Radiation 
contamination and
chemical contamination...its all the same."

STAR: Standing for Truth About Radiation, P.O. Box 4206, East Hampton, 
NY 11937,
phone 516-324-0655.

Primary Sponsors: KRAFT Foods, Pillsbury, Jello.

Transcripts: 1-800-777-8398

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