Re: What is Safe

["Reynolds, Harold" <harold.reynolds@rfets.gov>]

I agree completely with Al Tschaeche's post on ICRP.  What I don't agree
with is other posts (which I somehow lost) stating that ICRP had CLEARLY
bought into LNT by 1959.  When they use statements such as "conservative",
" effects of low doses are not known" and "for the purposes of radiation
protection",  I take that to mean that they were saying (to paraphrase) that
in the absence of evidence either way we should use the most conservative
assumption (LNT) for the purpose of protecting the workers, the public and
the environment. To my thinking, that does not indicate CLEARLY buying into
LNT as a fact.  If they had had the information we have now, I wonder if
they would have taken a different tact?  I wonder what the authors of that
original position think about the extremes to which it has been taken.  Is
my logic flawed -am I using selective reading to come to an interpretation
that agrees with me just as the proponents of LNT use the reverse reading?
Are we all just seeing what we want to see?

Harry
Harold.Reynolds@RFETS.gov
303.966.2708
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