WHY PEOPLE ARE OVER WEIGHT

The enlightened opposition to safe disinfection in New Jersey includes one Walter Bernstein, M.D., which letters would lead one to believe that he is a doctor of medicine, were it not for the Daily Record (Northwest N.J.) of 11/2/83 quoting him that "low radiation levels may be more hazardous than high ones."

But Dr Bernstein knows more about radiation than what makes it toxic. He has been studying the Hopi Indians who allegedly have been exposed to radiation by uranium mining in the Southwest. "In the olden days," the Daily Record quotes him, "the Hopis lived to a ripe old age of 105 or 106. Now younger people are overweight, have heart disease, diabetes and cancer."

Ah, so that's where obesity comes from. Of course! Why did nobody think of it before? (Even the illustrious Sternglass missed that one.) And all the while the antinukes thought obesity was due to the farmers growing too much food...

Now for two facts that may have escaped Dr Bernstein. Uranium with its long halflife (4.6 billion years) is itself not a significant source of radiation; what danger there is comes from isotopes in its decay chain, brought to the surface by radon gas bubbling up from the uranium deposits. In the Southwest, as in most places where uranium is mined, these deposits lie close to the surface, and the Hopis have been living in this radon-transported radiation for centuries (longer, as a matter of fact, than any other Indians or white men). If that is considered dangerous, there is one known way of eliminating the danger: mine the uranium and burn it as fuel in electric power plants.

Second: we have no idea why (or indeed, whether) the Hopis lived to age 106 "in the olden days." But any serious investigator should take a look at what the Indians of the Southwest used as the yellow pigment when they painted their faces.

Uranium ore.