Re: Chicago Tribune Radiation Chart

[Steve Frey <sfreyohp@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

Hi Bob -

That graphic certainly is drawing a lot of attention. The San Jose 
Mercury News also ran it on Saturday. 

Steve
x3839

At 12:21 PM 10/4/99 -0500, you wrote:
>At 11:36 AM 10/4/1999 -0500, you wrote:
>>
>>On October 1, a graphic appeared on the front page of the Chicago Tribune
>>along with the story about the accident in Japan.  The graphic contains a
>>chart purporting to show health effects from "Radiation exposure," and
>>claims that 5,000 millirem of exposure per year is a "lethal dose," that
>>exposure to 2,000 millirem per year brings the "onset of radiation
>>sickness" and exposure to 1,000 millirem per year leads to "increased
>>cancer risk."  The sources are claimed to be RERF, The Uranium Institute,
>>UNSCEAR, and the EPA. The graphic credits David Constantine as the
>>author/illustrator.
>
>This graphic also appeared in a local newspaper in the eastern suburbs of
>the San Francisco/Oakland, CA area. The most disturbing aspect of the
>graphic in my opinion was the statement in the graphic that “a person
>exposed to strong x-rays suffers cell damage and radiation sickness.” This
>statement has the potential to scare a reader into refusing or avoiding a
>medically necessary x-ray, which will, of course, have dramatically more
>dire consequences for the reader than the radiation exposure from the x-ray
>procedure. I sent a letter to the editor of the local paper explaining
>this, but I've not received a reply yet.
>
>===================================
>Bob Flood
>Dosimetry Group Leader
>Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
>(650) 926-3793
>bflood@slac.stanford.edu
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