Where to find scientific illiterates? Physicians for Social Responsibility, that's where.

The BAS just published a guest piece by one Steven Starr, among whose howlers I pulled this gem:

many individual pools contain more cesium-137 than was released by all atmospheric nuclear weapons tests combined. These utterly lethal radionuclides will require some form of supervision for hundreds of thousands of years....

Clue for you, Steven:  Cs-137 has a half-life of 30.17 years.  Roughly 90% of it disappears every century.  In 3 centuries spent nuclear fuel is so low on gamma-emitters that it can be handled with gloves, and in 5 all the Cs-137 and Sr-90 are effectively gone and the spent fuel has LESS activity than the raw uranium ore from which it came.  What remains has such low activity, and most of it alpha-emissions, that you're probably more at risk from heavy-metal poisoning than radiation if you eat it.  Those risks are pretty low, too; the "UPPU" group who got significant body burdens of plutonium through accidents show no related ill effects.

If physicians actually wanted to be socially responsible, they'd learn something before spouting off.  It's a pity that this guy is a senior scientist and not a physician, otherwise it might be possible to charge him with malpractice and get him out of the fear-mongering business.  Sadly, PSR is just a front group for well-heeled anti-nuclear interests; if they were subject to real medical and scientific discipline, it might be possible to make them ACTUALLY serve the cause of social responsibility.

  ¶ 6/03/2016 01:12:00 AM