From Deseret News archives:
Let facts, not paranoia, govern nuclear policy
Late in the 1980s, while serving as state health officer for Nevada, I toured the Nevada Test Site while underground-weapons tests were still actively conducted. The lunacy of open-air testing was obvious in the remnants visible on the desert landscape. Fallout from open-air nuclear bomb tests was an unnecessary hazard visited upon Utah.
During my tenure on the environmental medicine faculty of National Jewish Center in Denver, I received an environmental medicine fellowship from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Diseases Registry, part of the CDC. I used the funding to investigate an alleged cancer cluster near a uranium mill in central Colorado. The mill had been declared a Superfund site by the EPA. Fortunately, careful scientific exploration of cancer in the neighborhoods near the uranium mill failed to document excess cancer cases.
Ionizing radiation has become synonymous in the public view with worst-case toxicity. People angrily denounce anything nuclear, from the way some people pronounce the word to the naming of a sports arena. The furor over unsigned legislation going into law amply demonstrates the intensity of the concern. This is clearly out of proportion to the real risk that ionizing radiation presents. The vast majority of cancer cases in Utah over the past 50 years would have happened even if no open-air nuclear bomb testing had ever occurred, no matter what congressional candidates would have you believe. There are many legitimate uses for ionizing radiation, from health care to energy. Therefore, we need to be less fearful and more forward-looking when it comes to disposing of nuclear waste.
It can be legitimately argued that the most dangerous policy that nearly every American endorses is our dependence on fossil fuels, especially those originating in the Middle East. Surely we can agree that breaking our dependence on Middle East oil is both a necessary environmental intervention and the most important means to fight today's terrorists. Developing nuclear power resources is a legitimate option in the process of reducing dependence on oil.
EnergySolutions is a thriving Utah business and an excellent corporate citizen. No Utah resident is at greater risk for disease because of the business interests of EnergySolutions. Proper disposal of low-level radioactive waste is an essential function in modern society. I am personally acquainted with Larry Miller, and he knows that I would not hesitate to criticize him if warranted, but his decision to sell the naming rights of the basketball arena to EnergySolutions is good business, both for the basketball team and for the entire state.
It is time to change the tenor of the public discussion about ionizing radiation. We should quit whining about the name of the basketball arena. More importantly, we need to raise our level of sophistication about the public health risk associated with radioactive materials.
Today's uses for ionizing radiation are not the equivalent of lunatic experimentation with nuclear weapons above ground. Opposition to nuclear power development on ideological grounds alone fails to consider the gigantic hazards to health and safety created by the status quo in our energy policy.
Dr. Joseph Q. Jarvis is a public health consultant in Salt Lake City.
