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Radium in water scare tactics
Mark
Y. Avelli
11/22/2003
The power of irrational sensational reporting by the local print media on radium in drinking water has all the trappings aimed at so alarming its readers that they opt to believe poorly informed reporters rather the health experts. We are all exposed to many risks each and every day of our existence on earth. Radium in water has become a fabricated risk by a subtle and highly potent process of journalistic proselytizing which has been accepted uncritically to shape individual minds.
The real substance of every day risk was put in perspective, last year by Bernard L. Cohen (Prof. Emeritus of Physics, Univ. of Pittsburgh) in an article published by the American Council on Science and Health. Dr. Cohen considered the average Loss Of Life Expectancy (LLE) from exposure to various risks. Various excerpts from this study are listed as published. "Heart diseases (4.4 years), cancer (3.4 years) and stroke (250 days) cause LLE of more than 6 months. Aside from diseases, the principal direct causes of death are accidents (366 days), suicide (115 days), and homicide (93 days). Over half of all accidents are due to motor vehicles, and half of these are alcohol related. The most important other type of accidents are falls 928 days), suffocation (28 days), poison (20 days), and fires (20 days)."
"Perhaps the best known risky behavior is smoking cigarettes (6.6 years for men, 3.9 years for women). Even more dangerous is being an alcoholic (12 years). Over-eating gives an LLE of about 36 days per pound, or one year for each 10 pounds overweight; being 20 % overweight increases the fatality risk of heart disease by 29 %, of cancer by 10 %, of stroke by 15 %, and diabetes by 130 %."
" If you believe the most dire warnings of environmental activists, you might add several other threats, though they still would be small compared to many of the problems listed above: air pollution (40 days), drinking water pollution (20 days), chemical residues in food (20 days), and chemicals released from consumer products (20 days). Media gives wide publicity to cancer causing pollutants. Some of these are pesticide residues in food (12 days), tobacco smoke (8 days), other indoor pollutants (2 days), industrial pollution (4 days), hazardous waste site (2.5 days), drinking water contaminants (1.3 days), radon in homes (25 days), other natural sources of radiation (10 days), and medical exposure (10 days)."
"But everything man does, purposely or through pollution, is trivial in comparison with nature's contribution. All plants contain toxic chemicals to protect them from their natural enemies. Many of these chemicals can cause cancer, like nitrosamines in beets, celery, and lettuce; aflatoxin in peanuts, corn, and milk; sterigmatocystin in salami, ham and wheat; hydrazines in mushrooms; allyl isothiocyanate in mustard, broccoli, and cabbage; safrole in pepper; tannins in coffee, tea and wines; psoralens in celery and parsley; ethyl carbamate in bread, yogurt, beer, and wine; formaldehyde in fruits; benzene in eggs; methylene chloride in fats; coumarin in candy; diacetyl in coffee and butter; and flavonoids in fruits and vegetables. These are nature's pesticides, and per quantity ingested, they are as carcinogenic as man-made pesticides. But we eat 10,000 times as much of nature's pesticides as of man- made ones"
Interested readers, press reporters, gullible politicians, and grand juries should become acquainted on the voluminous radiation data readily available on the Internet. They will find no creditable data linking any detrimental health effects on people exposed to low levels of radium in drinking water. Natural radiation averages about 80 millirem a year in the United States, but in Colorado it's about double this because of altitude and uranium and thorium in the Rockies. In Pensacola, natural radiation is much lower. Cancer rates in the Rockies are only two-thirds of the national average and much lower than the cancer rate in the Gulf States. Similar results, (lower death rates when exposed to low level radiation); have been reported in several countries throughout the world. Repeated testing for radium in area schools is not warranted. The health risk is not significant enough to warrant spending money that could best be used for education rather than water testing under control by the ECUA.
Mary Y. Avelli
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