CONCOCTIONS FROM THE KOOKY CAULDRON

The Washington-based Health & Energy Institute has a single-minded crew of advisers: Sister Bertell, Helen Caldicott, Drs. Cobb, Gofman, Johnson, Morgan, Wald, and other such sages whose blood is radioactive. (Read about some of these in Doctors Against Health, $2 from us, and about Morgan, Johnson, Gofman in Judge P. Kelly's verdict in US vs. Johnson, free from AIF, address above). In an unforgivable oversight, Dr Sternglass has been omitted from this board of scholars.

The institute's main thrust appears directed against the irradiation of food, for this is the pet peeve of its president, who looks like a woman in photographs, but calls itself "Kathleen Tucker, Esquire." I hasten to point out that the picture on the right is not one of the Esquire; it is taken from the invitation to hear it speak on the dreadful dangers of food irradiation in New Jersey on Dec. 2.

I have written often enough about the reasons why gamma-irradiated food cannot itself become radioactive, and why it is more effective and less hazardous than chemical preservatives; I cannot devote more space to it. Instead, I will refer readers to an excellent, recently re-published booklet by the Amer. Cncl. on Sci. & Health, Irradiated Foods ($2, ACSH, 47 Maple St. Summit, NJ 07901). But there is another point here which illustrates why this type of superstition monger is most often associated with the totalitarian left. Nobody forces the Esquire to buy irradiated food: it can have its food with either maggots or carcinogenic nitrites, and even with both. I wish I could equally easily get mine preserved by irradiation. But no: the coercives know what's good for you and seek to force it on you by the armed force of the law.

Board Member Sister Bertell is a professional antinuke who has accused nuclear plants of causing acid rain because they (like hospitals) use diesel generators as stand-bys for emergencies in power failures, and who has implied that a millirem of "hard" radiation is more hazardous than "soft" (just as 1 lb of lead is heavier than 1 lb of feathers). She has now made more scientific discoveries. Speaking at an Australian Disarmament Conference last August, she revealed her suspicion of what causes AIDS. You'll never guess, so let me tell you: radiation! Proof: the epidemic is mostly in the countries using nuclear power, and is worst in the US, where 700 nuclear bombs (quoth she) have been set off; and it all started in Zaire (quoth she), where the uranium mines are.

Although the logic is cast in iron, this scientific discovery is disputed by a rival theory, promoted by leading officials of Papandreos' Greek Socialist Party, including a professor of classics. A conversation with them is reported in Le Nouvel Observateur, 9/13/85, by correspondent Guy Lacaze. It includes this revelation: "Do you know where AIDS comes from? The media keep it from being known, but it has been spread voluntarily by the Jews in order to destabilize the world."

Ach ja, of course! How couldt we heff missed it for so long, Schwester Bertell?