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From: jmc@riccb.UUCP (Jeff McQuinn )
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.sci,net.bio
Subject: Re: Re: Plutonium
Message-ID: <685@riccb.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 21-May-86 06:31:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: riccb.685
Posted: Wed May 21 06:31:17 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 22-May-86 21:05:28 EDT
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> >Maybe we are!...more seriously, isn't anyone else in this plutonium
> >discussion at least mildly disturbed at the 10% increase in Cancer
> >deaths over the last 20 years recently reported by the Harvard School
> >of Public Health?
> 

Cancer is something that by and large you have to live long enough to get.
In other words, the longer you live the greater your chances of getting
cancer.  (maybe we need to put a Surgeon Generals warning on birth 
certificates: Warning, life is nearly always a fatal condition).  Anyway,
the point is that in the past two decades the average lifespan has increased
by a couple of years, toxic waste dumps abound, Agent Orange was sprayed all
over Vietnam's DMZ, acid rain was discovered, catalytic converters were added
to cars, cyclomates were banned, pesticides abound, add infinitum.  And we
dumped a lot of Pu in the atmosphere.  Which of these occurences caused the
increase in cancer?  Maybe we should turn off the sun because people get
skin cancer.  Maybe we need to assess the risks vrs. the benefits before we
make blanket statements about the use of nuclear materials, pesticides or
anything else for that matter.  We need to worry less about radionuclides
from atmosheric testing causing cancer and worry more about why we seem to
need weapons at all.  Pu is dangerous stuff, there is no doubt on that score.
Arsenic is also dangerous.  So are cars, people and grizzly bears.  The
world is full of danger.  Stay in bed if you really need to minimize your
exposure to dangerous things.  The rest of us will try to weight the risk
against the benefits.

				Jeff McQuinn just VAXing around