Before It’s Too Late: A Scientist’s Case for Nuclear EnergyI was not invited to write a foreword for this book. Dr. Cohen, knowing my busy schedule, would have considered such a request to be an imposition. I volunteered to do so in part to acknowledge my gratitude to him for having been a constant source of reference materials as I have turned my attention increasingly to informing both lay and scientific audiences concerning the biologic effects of low-level ionizing radiation. My primary reason for vol unteering, however, is to point to the importance of such a book for public education at a time when the media, in collaboration with a variety of activist groups, have developed among the people an almost phobic fear of radiation at any level. I take issue with the words of another Nobel laureate, George Wald, who states regularly "Every dose is an overdose. '" This philosophy has re sulted in women refusing mammography for the detection of breast cancer even though this methodology is the most sensitive for detection of such cancers in the early, curable stage, and even though, at present, breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths among women. It has led a Westchester County, New York legislator to state proudly in the New York Times that he v vi I FOREWORD had introduced legislation that would bar all radioactivity from the county's roads. |
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Page 131
... human stomach each year . The remainder of our calculation is easy because we know from Fig . 17 the consequences of this waste reaching a human stomach . All we need do is multiply the curve in Fig . 17 by one trillionth to obtain the ...
... human stomach each year . The remainder of our calculation is easy because we know from Fig . 17 the consequences of this waste reaching a human stomach . All we need do is multiply the curve in Fig . 17 by one trillionth to obtain the ...
Page 136
... humans every year , if an atom remains in the ground indefinitely , eventually after a long enough time , it has a good chance of reaching a human stomach . However , there are other processes for removing materials from the ground ...
... humans every year , if an atom remains in the ground indefinitely , eventually after a long enough time , it has a good chance of reaching a human stomach . However , there are other processes for removing materials from the ground ...
Page 145
... human stomachs by that route . These two effects roughly compensate one another . We therefore estimate that material dissolved in rivers has one chance in 10,000 of getting into a human stomach . * Since an atom of the rock has 10 ...
... human stomachs by that route . These two effects roughly compensate one another . We therefore estimate that material dissolved in rivers has one chance in 10,000 of getting into a human stomach . * Since an atom of the rock has 10 ...
Contents
Problems in Public Understanding | 1 |
How Dangerous is Radiation? | 11 |
The Fearsome Reactor Meltdown Accident | 49 |
Copyright | |
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