Re: www fallout (radiation, AIDS etc)

[Philip Hypes <phypes@nis5.lanl.gov>]

>> I was not saying that we should require proof of hormesis or something more
>> like it than LNTH before abandoning LNTH.
>
>I sorry I misread you. But, can't we put the shoe on the other foot and
require
>absolute proof of harm before we go on with the LNTH?

I wish we could, but I doubt we can, at least not without
a few generations of high-quality risk/radiation instruction
in all our schools.  Go to a public meeting about a
"radiation facility," or review the history of the Gulf War
Illness issue; the burden of proof is on those who say
something is acceptably safe (or did not cause disease/
condition X).  Look at the reason the NRC abandoned
the de minimus issue;  the vocal members of the public
were horrified at the very thought of labeling any level of
exposure "below regulatory concern."  In the court of public
opinion, radiation is guilty until (and for some people,
despite being) proven innocent.

>
>> I feel that we have enough
>> reason to abandon LNTH right now.
>
>Wonderful!  To what do we go?

A threshold below which no money will be spent and
monitoring will not be required.  Ideally, this would be
part of a uniform level of de minimus risk that is applied
to all governmentally regulated hazards, but that's too
much to expect all at once.


>> All I was saying was that
>> until we have proof to the contrary, the "no safe level of radiation"
>> statement
>> will be true in a lawyerly, weaselly nitpicking sense.
>
>So, in the same sense of "Well, I smoked marijuana but you shouldn't hold
that
>against me because I didn't inhale," or, "I lied, but I didn't commit
perjury," we
>might say, "Well, we may not know low doses of radiation are harmful, but
I never
>lied telling people that they are."

NOW we're communicating!

>Sure we should.  Some have been for many years.  Many more need to do so.
Glad
>you will?

Why don't we all promise ourselves that the next time an
LNT based regulation is published for comment, we will
do exactly that.  Having done it once, it may develop into
a habit.  A few year's record of such comments might go
a long way toward convincing the lawmakers that we are
serious when we say LNT is junk.  Our arguments seem
very hollow when we P.S. them with "no, I didn't comment;
I didn't think it would do any good."

Phil
___________________________________________________________
Philip Hypes
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Safegaurds Science and Technology Group (NIS 5)
(505) 667-1556  phypes@lanl.gov

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