In my continuing efforts to produce a narrative about the way that the public was taught to be afraid of ionizing radiation, no matter how low the dose, I came across an interesting write up in the Rockefeller Foundation Annual Report for 1958. Here is some important temporal context. The Foundation Board of Trustees asked…
Many people have a strong fear of contracting “the big-C.” Though I share that concern based on my personal observation of too many loved ones who lost their battle with cancer, my personal nightmare disease is Alzheimer’s. It’s difficult as someone who thoroughly enjoys challenging mental activity to imagine the experience of slowly losing my…
Here’s an example of how Internet tools pose a challenge for nefarious government officials who want to make inconvenient information from programs initiated by predecessors “go away.” Low Dose Radiation Research Program Accomplishments Several months ago, I wrote some articles describing how the Department of Energy’s Low Dose Radiation Research program was systematically defunded and…
By Bill Sacks This is in response to Rosie Romero’s article in the January 27 issue of the GV News (p. B8), What you need to know about radon. It is wrong, just plain wrong. In the low concentrations encountered in homes, radon is not a cause of lung cancer, let alone “the second leading…
The Virginia Chapter of the American Nuclear Society will be holding its monthly meeting on January 21 at the Dominion Innsbrook Technology Center in Glenn Allen, VA. That meeting will be the annual joint meeting with the local chapter of the Health Physics Society. Schedule: Social Hour – 5:30 p.m. Dinner – 6:00 p.m. Presentation…
As a former federal agency bureaucrat, I should have thought of this long ago. When agencies disagree over matters with significant budgetary impact, one way to arbitrate the dispute is to involve the people in Congress who are responsible for funding the agencies and the programs affected by their differing points of view. One possible…
Three members of Scientists for Accurate Radiation Information (SARI)–Jeffry A. Siegel, Charles W. Pennington and Bill Sacks –successfully submitted a letter to the Reader’s Forum section of Physics Today titled Low-dose radiation exposure should not be feared. The letter has a powerful conclusion. Many people, though they admit the absence of evidence, nevertheless believe that…
The below is an improved version of a comment that I posted on the NRC blog titled Examining the Reasons for Ending the Cancer Risk Study. It was composed in response to accusations from a person named Gary Morgan who stated that I had attacked Greg Jaczko, misunderstood the biological nature of radiation, and promoted…
In a recent post titled Message is reaching the public – radiation risks have been greatly exaggerated I pointed to a New York Times piece by George Johnson describing how the evacuations ordered after the Fukushima reactor core melt events has already caused about 1600 early fatalities. He also explained how the radioactive material that…
An important message that has been discussed often by web publications like Hiroshima Syndrome, Yes Vermont Yankee, Canadian Energy Issues, Nuke Power Talk, Neutron Bytes, Atomic Power Review, and ANS Nuclear Cafe has jumped to the mainstream press in the form of a New York Times article by George Johnson titled When Radiation Isn’t the…
For the first time in several months, I gathered a group of nuclear energy experts to chat about recent events and announcements in nuclear energy. Participants in this episode include: Meredith Angwin who blogs at Yes Vermont Yankee and Northwest Clean Energy Steve Aplin who blogs at Canadian Energy Issues Les Corrice who blogs at…
On September 8, 2015, the NRC announced that it would stop funding the National Academy of Sciences’s (NAS) five-year-long, multimillion dollar effort to create a method that could be used to study whether or not populations that are exposed to radiation doses that are a tiny fraction of average background radiation related to proximity to…