Fallout blamed for thyroid cancer -Reply

[Michael S Ford <MFORD@pantex.com>]

>>> Jason Armstrong  wrote on  Wed 16 Sep 98  6:53 >>>
This was taken this morning from USA Today.
Jason.Armstrong@Halliburton.com.....
-------------------------------------------------

Botched fallout study put millions at risk.....
WASHINGTON - Federal scientists mismanaged....

Investigators also assailed the study's authors for failing to assess
health risks associated with the radiation doses, noting that
subsequent calculations tied the fallout to somewhere between
11,000 and 212,000 thyroid cancers. 

Earlier this month, a blue-ribbon panel of scientists at the Institute
of Medicine confirmed the fallout study's findings, which showed
that people who were children in the Rocky Mountain states and
parts of the farm belt at the time of the tests likely received the most
radiation.

But the panel urged the government not to undertake medical
screening or other services, concluding that such efforts would
have little chance of accurately identifying fallout-related illnesses...

By Peter Eisler, USA TODAY
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Two items would be of interest for further investigation:

1.  The *risk* calc. methodology used to arrive at the *estimated*
numbers of thyroid cancers.  

'Just a guess, but here goes:

(FGR-13 type risk factors) X (minuscule individual doses) X (large
populations) = thyroid cancer incidence for a non-existent group of
people that would have received the entire amount of fallout?

2.  If this is such an egregious miscarriage of environmental justice,
why does the Institute of Medicine recommend against follow-up to
locate the *victims*?  Perhaps because they wouldn't be able to
find them due to the basis of the project thyroid cancer calcs?

OK, I'm a cynic.  I admit it.  'Anybody seen a copy of the report?

v/r
Michael
*************************
Michael S. Ford, CHP
Texas Radiation Advisory Board
Address:
Radiation Safety Department
Battelle Pantex
Amarillo, TX
806.477.5727 phone
806.477.4198 fax
mford@pantex.com
*************************
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