Re: Just what is SAFE?

[dckosloff@aep.com]

Let us also pause for a moment in memory of the welder who died when his
anti-Cs caught fire and the worker who had his face pulled into a machine
after his anti-Cs got caught in the machine.  Unfortunately, there have
probably been others.

In the fifties when I was growing up, I read a lot about nuclear power and
I don't remember "Too cheap to meter".  That is until the seventies when I
started seeing it (unattributed) as a critical comment on nuclear power.

I do remember seeing a picture in a book of a radiation source, cobalt I
think, surrounded by circular rows of corn.  The closest rows were
nonexistent or incomplete.  The next rows had stunted growth.  But the most
abundant rows were at a medium distance from the source.  I also remember
reading about the use of radioactive tracers to do human research, wiggling
my feet in a flouroscope and swallowing a barium cocktail.

How safe are people in their houses when airplanes fall on them as in
Lockerbie, Scotland (11died) or Cerritos, CA (about 20 died) or trucks
drive through their walls, or the gas lines underneath them blow up, or
their neighbor leaves their motor running and they die from carbon monoxide
poisoning.  What about a family of four in their tent in a campground who
die when a van runs over their tent.  What about hundreds of people at the
beach who die when a liquefied gas truck crashes and burns.  These are real
dead people not estimated risk numbers.

Personal knowledge, propaganda and publicity have a lot to do with what
people consider safe.

Only my own comments and conclusions.

Don Kosloff
2910 Main St, Perry OH 44081, dkosloff@ncweb.com


************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html