Re:RE: Tooth Fairy Project Presenting Findings at Ottawa

["Elizabeth Algutifan"<elizabeth_algutifan@wssrap-host.wssrap.com>]

I got on www.radiation.org yesterday and was reading about the Radiation &
Public Health Project's (RPHP) Tooth Fairy Project. There's also an interesting
summary about their "Radiation and Health Seminar" conducted on May 25 of this
year in Westhampton Beach, New York.  The purpose of this seminar was to appeal
to the public in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, New York to donate their
children's baby teeth and why the RPHP feels this study is so important.  

Here are my observations:

1) They are trying to collect 10,000 teeth from all over the country over the
next two years (to establish a background number, I guess?).

2) The only pathway they seem to be interested in is the drinking water pathway.
I base this assumption on their baby teeth submittal form which doesn't ask
about any other questions about ingestion.  Notice there are no questions on the
form like "Do you and your child drink milk from a family dairy or buy it at the
store?" or "How much milk do you (your child) drink on a daily basis?"? I'd love
to know what they're assuming for the grass/cow/milk/ingestion pathway.

3) Gould, Sternglass, and Mangano in their article "USA Newborn Deterioration in
the Nuclear Age, 1945-1996" supposedly calculate the number of excess infant
deaths and underweight births due to "chemical and radioactive pollutants (see
http://oldbooks.net/rphp/newborn/newborn.html) by comparing annual numbers to a
magic extrapolated curve based on some 1935-50 data. Think about it. They're
using 16 years of data to draw a curve that's supposed to represent all of
history?  This reminds me of the people who say our 4.5 billion-year-old earth
is warming up because of human activity, based on 100 years of climatological
data. What do you wanna bet that they plotted the actual data then invented a
curve that would make things look bad for industry? These curves are largely the
basis for their argument. Besides, the curves show that infant mortality has
dropped drastically (which it certainly has) since the 1930s. So why are they so
worried?

4) Long Island has 21 Superfund sites. Why are they picking on the radiological
facilities? (That's a rhetorical question) 

5) They lump Brookhaven with the two nuclear power plants in the area as
potentially being the cause for increased breast cancer and rhabdomyosarcoma
rates on Long Island, even though the BNL release they love to refer to was a
slow leak of low-level, tritium-contaminated water (not a bone seeker, last time
I looked), and did not by all accounts reach local well water. They interpret
BNL's offer of free water hookups to towns south of the site as an admission of
guilt, of course.

6) Ernest Sternglass subscribes to the "Petkau effect" whereby he believes that
lower radiation doses are more potent per unit dose than higher doses. Well, I
guess he's in a minority there. Do any of you Radsafers subscribe to the Petkau
effect? (another rhetorical question)

I realize that I, too, am preaching to the choir; however, these people are, I
think, to be taken seriously.  A little knowledge and a lot of public hysteria
can be dangerous things.

Elizabeth Algutifan,
Environmental HP
Weldon Spring Site 
St. Charles, Missouri
Elizabeth_Algutifan@wssrap-host.wssrap.com

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