AIDS ally Jeremy Rifkin went to court (and to the media) yet again over a genetically engineered vaccine against a disease (swine pseudorabies). The shadow Agriculture Dpt. dutifully sus-pended its license, while the trembling scientific community trembled in wide-eyed silence. But there are still brains in the shadow judiciary: Judge Hogan of the DC Federal District Court threw out the suit because legal standing requires evidence of specific, personalized injury, not a generalized grievance. The lack of standing, I gather, goes beyond a previous decision re-buffing this louse: "The injury requirement will not be satisfied simply because a chain of events can be hypothesized." Good news for the sick; bad news for the author of "The Legal Standing of Trees". (Yes, there is such a book.)
US N&W Report (1/25/88) printed a chart based on Cohen's "Catalog of Risk," using the UCS (see above) value for nuclear reactor accidents. Though their figure is two hundred and fifty times higher than that based on the Rasmussen Report (now known to be itself too high), it is at the bottom of the list, far trailing such risks
¾expressed as shortening of life expectancy¾ as drinking coffee, walking down the street, being poor and (1100 times higher!) being an unmarried male.
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Vol. 15, No. 7
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Issues Issue/No.: Vol. 15, No. 7 Date: December 01, 2004 01:08 PM Title: Seabrook and the West
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
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