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November 3, 2000
Senator Pete V. Domenici
328 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-3101
Subject: GAO Radiation Report is Misleading
Dear Senator Domenici,
We strongly support your LNT challenge. But GAO did not properly assess the data
that show:
NO science supports, and voluminous data refute, the LNT. (E.g., Jake Spalding's
LANL work.) GAO says there’s evidence “on both sides.” But NCRP-121, 1995,
states:
“Few experimental studies, and essentially no human data,
can be said to prove or even to provide direct support for the concept … It is
conceptually possible, but with a vanishingly small probability, that any of
these effects could result from the passage of a single charged particle, causing
damage to DNA that could be expressed as a mutation or small deletion. It is a
result of this type of reasoning that a linear non-threshold dose-response relationship cannot
be excluded.” (emphasis added)
If LNT were true, or adverse effects existed at 5-10 rem, they would be
readily seen, in 100s of millions of medical patients; millions of workers; and in
high natural radiation areas. (Note that BRPS said background varies by more than a factor
of 100.)
Government agencies misrepresent data to support the LNT. See, e.g., "DOE
Misrepresents the Nuclear Shipyard Worker Study," attached. See also, EPA's Federal
Register response to its Scientific Advisory Board on setting radium limits, that states:
“…use of the dial painter data requires either deriving a
linear risk coefficient from significantly non-linear exposure-response data, or
abandoning EPA policy…” [which they refused to do].
We expected your request to cause substantive reviews of data and allegations of agency
misrepresentations. GAO failed to assess the data. It did not engage knowledgeable critics
for input. GAO now seems complicit. Will government ever review the data? To
include/address the critics?
We again urge that your staff query the agencies, and GAO, on specific data and
allegations.
Regards, Jim Muckerheide
Dr. Theodore Rockwell, Vice President
President
3403 Woolsey Drive, Chevy Chase, MD 20815
Attachment: DOE Statement Misrepresents
the Nuclear Shipyard Worker Study
Cc: Senator Murkowski, Representative Sensenbrenner, Comptroller General Walker
Independent
Individuals Knowledgeable in Radiation Science and Public Policy
Committed to Change
Radiation Science policy in the Public Interest |
