To: downwinders@yahoogroups.com
From: "Russell D. Hoffman" <rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com>
Subject: Anyone who supports giving the terrorists such easy targets has a lot of explaining to do...
Dec. 21st, 2001
Mr. Hoerner's recent comment that 400 rem to your little finger is incapable of causing a life-threatening condition (see clip, below) is wrong. Any dose of radiation can cause cancer, leukemia, and other health effects. Even a .004 mrem dose can be deadly, although the rate at which health effects show up would be significantly less than from a 400 rem dose, and a finger is probably not as susceptible to radiation effects as, say, a woman's breasts or a man's gonads. However, the rate never reaches zero and thus, Mr. Hoerner's statement is inaccurate.
Low-level radiation-induced deaths are just the sorts of deaths most of the health physics profession, and the rest of the nuclear industry, wish to ignore.
For a time during the last century, x-ray machines were placed in shoe stores across America, and kids would get their feet x-rayed for free to be sure their shoes fit correctly. Parents were assured that there was absolutely no harm in this, and kids would get x-rayed every time they got new shoes -- and we all know how often kids need new shoes. Barefoot, then with this pair, then with that pair, then with another pair. These worthless gimmicks were eventually removed because, of course, cancers and leukemias were being traced back to them, not individually with unequivocal proof for each case, but statistically.
So it goes, again and again. X-rays are still given far more routinely than needed, and in many cases, could and should be replaced by other methods (such as MRIs). (I suggest the work of Dr. Gofman, available at www.ratical.org for more information about low-level radiation dangers.)
103 nuclear power plants continue to operate across America, each one just seconds from meltdown. That is their normal operating condition. A meltdown can happen so fast no one at the plant will escape alive, and people as far as ten miles away (or more) will be at risk of an immediate writhing, sinisterly painful death if they breath the invisible plume. People worldwide will suffer carcinogenic consequences decades and even centuries later.
Each day, tons and tons more radioactive waste is being created and put into spent fuel pools and dry storage casks. Anyone who supports giving the terrorists such easy targets has a lot of explaining to do. Instead, Mr. Hoerner, despite his rampages on various forums, won't even reveal his full identity.
Mr. Hoerner has been totally unresponsive to questions about how, for example, the nuclear industry is going to solve the "25 simple ways terrorists can attack a reactor and cause a meltdown". So far no one has purposely melted down a reactor (although a number of people have done it accidentally over the years), but there are so many vulnerabilities, and so many reactors, and so many people with grudges against other people... And so little being done to guard the reactors. The no-fly zones established after 9-11 aren't in effect anymore as far as I know, and most National Guard troops have been recalled from duty around the plants. Life is getting back to normal. But what is "normal"?
Normal is waiting for the next disaster, because we didn't do anything to stop it.
We need to shut all the nuclear power plants immediately. There is no other reasonable solution.
Russell Hoffman
Concerned Citizen
Carlsbad, CA
www.animatedsoftware.com/whoisrdh.htm
At 04:52 PM 12/20/01 , Jim Hoerner wrote (clip):
Hi, Peter.
[snip; irrellevant]
400 rem is a nearly-lethal dose, if recieved whole-body... If received to just your index finger,
though, it's not life threatening at all.
[cut; boring]
============================================================