LOW LEVEL RADIATION AGAIN

Last month's recommendation is worth repeating: How concerned should you be about low-level radiation? by the Intrntnl. AEC, 50 cents from AIF, 7101 Wisconsin Ave, Washington, DC 20014. But there are some more detailed publications, such as Prof. Cohen's "The cancer risk from low-level radiation," Health Physics, Oct. 1980, pp.659-678, from which we excerpt the figure below. The points are experimental measurements (with error bars) for all cancers except leukemia among Japanese A-bomb survivors; the dashed line is what one would get if the Mancuso-Stewart-Kneale studies of Hanford workers were correct.

Cohen, incidentally, is a national resource on this and allied subjects, and a source of a steady and relentless flow of data. While you look into Health Physics at the library, take a look at his "Catalog of Risks" (June 79, pp.707-722). You'll never guess what risk (in terms of lost life expectancy) is bigger than cigarettes, hurricanes, traffic accidents, cancer, and even heart disease.

It is to be an unmarried male. (A voluntary risk, too!) Next, there is the National Bureau of Standards' Special Publication no. 581 Radon in Buildings ($3.75 from GPO, Wash., DC 20402), the proceedings of a workshop held last year, with all the details of what is the biggest radioactive health hazard in the environment (strongly enhanced by energy conservation). It would have been interesting to rub Costle's, Speth's and other noses in it; but, hallelujah! they're moving out.

Finally, the above is a headline from the National Enquirer (13 May 80), whose scientific sources are statues that weep "when radiation becomes a threat to mankind," and Dr Ernst Sternglass. Below is a curve that refutes the contention that his warnings are merely ingenious hoaxes; for if they were ingenious, they would not be simple repetitions of his "two points out of a curve" trick as used at Connecticut Yankee, and Millstone, and Shippingport, and ... we yawn.

The full curve plots the HEW figures for infant mortality in Pennsylvania. The two points marked are the ones selected by America's most media-quoted "scientist," Dr Ernst Sternglass.