Re: Letter to NPR

[Bob Flood <bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

At 10:34 AM 10/4/1999 -0500, you wrote:
>
>Sandy doesn't know and apparently doesn't need to know.  David Lochbaum
works 
>for the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), and, unfortunately, that single 
>fact is sufficient to lead Sandy to summarily dismiss "anything [Mr. 
>Lochbaum] has said in the past or will say again in the future."  When you 
>can't refute the message, attack the messenger.

The credential used by NPR was that the man is a member of the Union of
Concerned Scientists, and that's all. The UCS has a track record, an
extensive one, which clearly demonstrates a political nature, not
scientific. While it is true that I did not take the time to research the
man's academic and professional history (I wouldn't even assume that such
private information is publicly available), I am under no obligation to
ignore the track record of the organization he used as a means of
demonstrating some level of expertise. Since UCS membership is open to
anyone with the membership fee, and the Union has represented biased
information as fact so many times in the past, anyone familiar with the
organization and its record would probably be suspicious of the credibility
of some new statements. It is entirely possible that Mr. Lochbaum is
knowledgeable enough to provide expert information on dose effects and may
well be very much interested in disseminating accurate information, but the
organization he chose to affiliate with has a checkered past. If he doesn't
want to be associated with the UCS track record, the remedy is in his
court, and not an obligation of the listener.

===================================
Bob Flood
Dosimetry Group Leader
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
(650) 926-3793
bflood@slac.stanford.edu
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