SUPPOSE THEY ARE RIGHT

The genetic bogey comes in after all the rational arguments have been refuted. When it has been pointed out that there are no mutations in parts of India and Brazil where the natural radiation background is three times as large as the upper limit considered safe by the International Radiation Protection .standards, when it has been pointed out that the most careful, protracted and widespread investigations (down to the chromosomes on the molecular level) in Hiroshima and Nagasaki turned up nothing, when it has been pointed out that the normal background of genetic defects in the US is 3% of all live births, when all this has been pointed out, then enter the genetic bogeyman: "OK, but how do we know that genetic effects will not turn up in the 25th generation from now?"

Here is what we do know: Man has lived with radioactivity on this planet for one million years, or roughly 33,000 generations; the odds of a sudden upset after another 25 generations seem rather slim. On the other hand, man has lived with coal burned on a large scale for only about two centuries or seven generations, and coal smoke contains not just suspected, but convicted mutagens (Science, 1/6/78, pp.73-75). But the Caldicotts, are not, of course, worried about mutations; they are worried about sandbagging the country into their social and political utopias, whatever the cost.

The other bogeyman is called "Every little bit hurts," and its song goes "There is nothing we can do about natural radioactivity, but we need not add to it by nuclear plants."

This bogeyman is quite mistaken, for there is plenty we can do about natural radioactivity. The criminal tresspassers at Rocky Flats, for example, can do plenty about the 180 or so mrem/year of natural radiation they absorb in Colorado: They can get the hell out of there. They can go to lower elevations where the cosmic component of the radiation drops by half for every mile in altitude, so that at sea level they will have diminished the dose they get at Rocky Flats by the equivalent of the routine emissions off 3,000 nuclear plants.

However, what they will find is that their chance of contracting cancer will have increased significantly, especially along the heavily industrialized sections of the East Coast: Colorado and Wyoming are not only way above the national average in radioactivity (mainly due to the altitude but also due to the radiation-rich Rockies), they are also way below the national average in cancer incidence. (From which an observer with Clamshell competence but without Clamshell obsessions, would quite wrongly conclude that radioactivity inhibits cancer.)

There are two more reasons why this bogeyman is absurd. In the interest of erring on the safe side, US safety regulations make the knowingly false assumption that "every little bit hurts," and they deliberately reject the hypothesis of a minimum threshold ot radioactivity where health effects start to set in, though there is much evidence for such a threshold. The bogeyman is thus not only false, but also irrelevant.

The other reason is that there is no way of escaping from "a little bit." About the best one could do is shut oneself in a leaden casket and descend into the depths of the sea, where there are no more fish or other radioactive sources. (And we ardently recommend this method to all who would rather be active today than radioactive tomorrow!) But if "every little bit hurts," that is not good enough: Sea water contains tritium, and no matter how thick the lead, there is a non-zero probability of an occasional beta-decay electron making it through the lead and through the air right into the empty head of our submarine refugee.