| Progressive Calendar 01.04.08 | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: David Shove (shove001 tc.umn.edu)
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| Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 02:51:56 -0800 (PST) | |
P R O G R E S S I V E C A L E N D A R 01.04.08 1. Ffunch 1.04 11:30am 2. RNC medic training 1.04 5pm 3. Deaf GLBT reader 1.04 7pm 4. Moyers/Dennis/Paul 1.04 9pm 5. GP membership meet 1.05 9am 6. Pax Christi 1.05 9am 7. HomelessVets/peace 1.05 10am 8. NWN4P Minnetonka 1.05 11am 9. New Hope vigil 1.05 1pm 10. Iraq 5yrs plan 1.05 1pm 11. Haiti celebration 1.05 5pm 12. GP prez forum 1.05 5pm 13. NativeAm piano 1.05 7:30pm 14. US revolution?/TV 1.05 9pm 15. Gardner/Arora - Dr Strangelove's nemesis 16. Jeanne Weigum - Wildlife drama in St Paul [recipe for mouse mousse] 17. ed - Bumpersticker #2 --------1 of 17-------- From: David Shove <shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu> Subject: Ffunch 1.04 11:30am Meet the FFUNCH BUNCH! 11:30am-1pm First Friday Lunch (FFUNCH) for Greens/progressives. Informal political talk and hanging out. Day By Day Cafe 477 W 7th Av St Paul. Meet in the private room (holds 12+). Day By Day has soups, salads, sandwiches, and dangerous apple pie; is close to downtown St Paul & on major bus lines --------2 of 17-------- From: greenpartymike <ollamhfaery [at] earthlink.net> Subject: RNC medic training 1.04 5pm Please feel free to pass on. If you do not have any medical experience, no problem. We will be training people. - Michael Cavlan nurse (612)327-6902 A couple folks interested in being involved in with the medics for the RNC are getting together, Friday, January 4 at 5PM at Blue Moon Cafe on Lake St. --------3 of 17-------- From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com> Subject: Deaf GLBT reader 1.04 7pm Friday January 4th, 2008 7-9 p.m. The Loft Literary Center | Suite 200, Open Book | 1011 Washington Ave. S. | Minneapolis | MN | 55415 Join us as we celebrate the publication of Eyes of Desire 2: A Deaf GLBT Reader with a panel discussion: "What does it mean to be a part of the Deaf GLBT community?" Ten Minnesotan writers, both Deaf and hearing, all featured in the new anthology Eyes of Desire 2: A Deaf GLBT Reader will share their experiences with the Deaf gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) community. They include Karen Conway, Jessica Eggert, Jessalyn Frank, C J Hetle, Elise Knopf, John Kowalczyk, Michael La Rocca, Barry R. Segal, Canae Weiss, and Patricia White. The editor, Raymond Luczak, will moderate the lively discussion, which will be ASL and voice-interpreted for all. The event will also have CART captioning for those who are late-deafened and hard-of-hearing. Participants and audience members will receive .2 CEUs from RID at the beginning level. --------4 of 17-------- From: Joan Malerich <joanmdm [at] iphouse.com> Subject: Moyers/Kucinich/Paul 1.04 9pm Reminder: The PBS Bill Moyers Journal will be interviewing the two shut-up, shut-out candidates, Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, on Friday, Jan 4, 2008. --------5 of 17-------- From: Wyn Douglas <wyn_douglas [at] yahoo.com> Subject: GP membership meet 1.05 9am GPMN Winter Membership Meeting Saturday Jan 5, 2008, 9:00 am - 4:00 pm Hamline University, 1536 Hewitt Ave, Saint Paul, MN 55104, 651-523-2800; http://www.hamline.edu/ Meet in the Klas Center Bldg, 1537 Taylor Ave, in the Kay Fredericks Ballroom. Parking is available in all lots, (except Lot H). Some workshops @ 10am & 11am will be in another building (the Giddens Learning Center). 9:00 am Registration 9:30 am Welcome 10:00 am Workshops: - Delivering a Political Message" & "Corporations, Democracy and a Sustainable Future (in KLAS) - Knee Deep Organizing in the GPMN" & "MN Diversity Open Forum (in Giddens Learning Center) 11:00 am Workshops: - The Great Law of Peace (in KLAS) - Feminism: a Discussion Beyond Economics (in KLAS) - How to Convene a Caucus (in Giddens Learning Center) - GPMN Candidate Training (in Giddens Learning Center) 12:00 pm Potluck Lunch PLEASE BRING A DISH TO PASS & your own plate, silverware, cup & bag to take your dishes home in. 1:00pm Workshops: - Hate Crimes in MN (in KLAS Center) - Planning to Thrive after Oil (in KLAS Center) - Tapping into the GPMN's Web Presence (in KLAS Center) 2:00 pm GPUS election of 3 delegates 3:00 pm Information from MN GPUS delegates 3:30 pm Closing & Clean-up --------6 of 17-------- From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com> Subject: Pax Christi 1.05 9am 1/5 (9 am registration) to 1/6 (11 am closing), Pax Christi Twin Cities annual retreat, with Nonviolent Peaceforce director Mel Duncan, St Paul's Monastery Benedictine Center, 2675 E Larpenteur Ave, Maplewood. lynncibuzar [at] yahoo.com or 651-699-8565 and leave message. --------7 of 17-------- From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com> Subject: Homeless vets/peace 1.05 10am Saturday, 1/5, 10 to 11:30 am, meeting of Homeless Veterans for Peace, Peacehouse, 510 E Franklin, Mpls. Bob 612-789-9020. --------8 of 17-------- From: Carole Rydberg <carydberg [at] comcast.net> Subject: NWN4P Minnetonka 1.05 11am NWN4P-Minnetonka demonstration- Every Saturday, 11 AM to noon, at Hwy. 7 and 101. Park in the Target Greatland lot; meet near the fountain. We will walk along the public sidewalk. Signs available. --------9 of 17-------- From: Carole Rydberg <carydberg [at] comcast.net> Subject: New Hope vigil 1.05 1pm Saturday, 1-2PM - Weekly NWN4P vigil for peace in New Hope at the corner of 42nd (Co. Rd. 9) and Winnetka Ave. N. We usually park in the Walgreen's lot or near McDonald's. You may use one of our signs or bring your own. All welcome. Carole-763-546-5368. --------10 of 17-------- From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com> Subject: Iraq 5yrs plan 1.05 1pm Saturday, 1/5, 1 pm, planning meeting to mark the 5th anniversary of the U.S. war against Iraq (3/19/03), Mayday Books, 301 Cedar Ave S, Mpls. --------11 of 17-------- From: biego001 [at] umn.edu Subject: Haiti celebration 1.05 5pm The Haiti Justice Committee invites one and all to a celebration commemorating Haitian Independence; please join us at MayDay bookstore (301 Cedar Ave.,Mpls.) Sat. January 5th, 5-8pm. There will be food, music, good company and political talk. Bring something to share - food, beverage, music, poetry, a drum, your open heart! --------12 of 17-------- From: David Strand <mncivil [at] yahoo.com> Subject: GP prez forum 1.05 5pm We are pleased to invite you to join the Green Party of Minnesota this Saturday Jan. 5th for the Green Party Presidential Forum and Campaign Fair. Candidates Kat Swift and Jesse Johnson are confirmed attendees as of this writing (there may be more candidates) and there will be materials available on all 6 of the offical Green Party Presidential Candidates, Draft Candidates and their campaigns. For more on the Candidates and Draft Candidates please visit the site of the GPUS Presidential Campaign Support Committee at http://www.gp.org/committees/pcsc/index.shtml The forum and fair are being held from 5pm to 7pm in the event space behind the curtains in the northeast corner of the Midtown Global Market at 920 E. Lake Street in Minneapolis. Parking in the ramp next to the market on 10th Avenue is free for three hours with any purchase in the market. Don't forget to get your parking pass stamped if you are driving! If you are biking, the Midtown Global Market is just off the Midtown Greenway. If you are busing, the Midtown Global Market is reachable by bus routes 5, 39 & 21 as well as others very closeby. We encourage folks to buy their dinner or a snack or beverages to eat and drink during the candidate and campaign presentations and question and answer period and support the many small local community businesses which comprise the global market by eating some of their great and unique food offerrings. Organic and local meats, fruits, and other items are available. Many of you may know the Midtown Global Market as the old Sears building on Lake Street in South Minneapolis. For more on the market and directions please visit http://www.midtownglobalmarket.org/ There is no charge for attending but please be prepared to contribute to candidates or campaigns if you so feel inclined. Our guests will need to raise some additional funds to cover their travel expenses. Note: There is no flyering of the market space allowed outside the event space as requested by the nonprofit which runs the Global Market. Thanks for your cooperation with respecting this request. Please email davidstrand [at] mngreens.org if you are in need of ASL services or if you can provide ASL services or other language translation on an as needed basis. --------13 of 17-------- From: Diane J. Peterson <birch7 [at] comcast.net> Subject: NativeAm piano 1.05 7:30pm The evening of Jan. 5 (following our membership meeting), classical music fans can attend the concert of a Native American pianist performing in Minneapolis. He is performing as a benefit for both the Two Spirit Press Room and for the 20th Anniversary International Two Spirit Gathering. Two Spirit is a Native term for gay/bisexual people. I received notice about this concert from Richard LaFortune, who was a grand marshall of the Gay Pride Parade in Minneapolis, and is involved in the Two Spirit Press Room. -- The Twin Cities debut of Tim Hays (HoCak) Saturday, Jan. 5 7:30 pm Perfoming works of reknowned Quawpaw/Cherokee composer Louis Ballard, plus Bach, Scarlatti, Bartok, Debussy. All God's Children Metropolitan Community Church (612-824-2673) 3100 Park Avenue South Minneapolis 55407 Post concert dialogue with the artist moderated by the First Nations Composer Initiative. Reception with light refreshments. Free will donation of $10 is suggested; but everyone will be admitted Contact: Richard LaFortune 612-267-1682 twospiritpressroom [at] yahoo.com --------14 of 17-------- From: Eric Angell <eric-angell [at] riseup.net> Subject: US revolution?/CTV 1.05 9pm Most excellent Minneapolis Television Network (MTN 17) viewers: "Our World In Depth" cablecasts on MTN Channel 17 on Saturdays at 9pm and Tuesdays at 8am. Households with basic cable may watch. Sat, 1/5/2008 9pm and Tues, 1/8/2008 8am "Revolution in the US? A View from Venezuela" Interview of August Nimtz, U of M professor recently returned from Venezuela. Hosted by Karen Redleaf. --------15 of 17-------- John Gofman vs. the Nuclear Cowboys Dr. Strangelove's Nemesis By FRED GARDNER and SHOBHIT ARORA CounterPunch January 2, 2008 Dr. John Gofman left us in 2007 at the age of 88. Edward Teller called him "the enemy within" the nuclear research establishment because Gofman warned the public about the dangers inherent even in peaceful uses. (Teller was proud of his own sobriquet, "father of the H-bomb." Peter Sellers used Teller as a model when he played Dr. Strangelove in Stanley Kubrick's great black comedy.) In the early 1940s, while getting his PhD in physics at UC Berkeley, Gofman co-discovered Uranium 233 and demonstrated its slow and fast neutron fissionability. At the request of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Gofman and Robert Connick produced plutonium for the Manhattan Project. (Not even a quarter-milligram existed at the time of Oppie's request.) After the war Gofman got his MD from UCSF and began research that linked heart disease to the lipoproteins that transport cholesterol in the bloodstream. In 1963 the Atomic Energy Commission asked him to establish a Biomedical Research Division at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory to evaluate the health effects of all types of nuclear radiation. Before long, however, the nuclear establishment was ignoring his warnings about the real dangers of low-dose ionizing radiation. Gofman returned to full-time teaching at Berkeley, and took early retirement in 1973. This interview, which ran in the AVA in 1994, was conducted by Shobhit Arora, a second-year medical student, with me sitting in. We started out discussing a Wall St. Journal item: "The White House was surprised - and chagrined - by Energy Secretary O'Leary's comment about paying compensation to atomic-testing victims. With a super-tight budget, the White House is now scrambling to head off a costly new entitlement." -FG Gofman: Secretary Hazel O'Leary is undoubtedly the first breath of fresh air that we've seen in the atomic era. I think what she's doing is great and I hope millions - hundreds of millions of people back her - because she's going to face a ferocious opposition. It's going to be like a nuclear firestorm in opposition to her, because she's doing something constructive. I have for 25 years been an intense critic of the Department of Energy. I say this because Hazel O'Leary stands for compassion, candor and credibility - not because I've changed my mind about the DOE, which I think is one of the worst organizations in the history of our government. Unless it's cleaned out, we're going to have worse things in the future. The human experimentation that has been done is bad. And it's good that that's being cleared away. But for 25 years the DOE has not shown any concern for the health of Americans. Their concern has been for the health of the DOE. Their falsehoods concerning the hazards of ionizing radiation have put not thousands of people at risk, not millions of people, but billions of people. The worst-case scenario is this. Ever since its inception, the Atomic Energy Commission - then called ERDA, then called DOE - has had one thing in mind. "Our program is sacrosanct." And they recognize, as I've recognized, that their entire program will live or die based upon one thing. If the public should come to learn the truth about ionizing radiation, nuclear energy and the atomic energy program of DOE is going to be dead. Because the people of this country - and other countries - are not going to tolerate what it implies. The key thing - it's everything in the DOE program - is: "We must prove that low doses of radiation are not harmful..." They have been conducting a Josef Goebels propaganda war, saying there's a safe dose when there has never been any valid evidence for a safe dose of radiation. Yet the DOE and others continue to talk about their "zero-risk model." After Chernobyl, I estimated that there were going to be 475,000 fatal cancers throughout Europe - with another 475,000 cancers that are not fatal. That estimate was based on the dose released on the various countries of fallout from Cesium-137. The DOE put out a report in 1987 - and I don't think it's any credit to the University of California that part of this report was done in the Livermore Lab, where I once worked, and part in Davis - saying "our zero-risk model says that at these low doses, nothing will happen, because low doses are safe." How would a safe level of radiation come about? It could come about in theory if the biological repair mechanisms - which exist and which will repair DNA and chromosomes - work perfectly. Then a low dose of radiation might be totally repaired. The problem, though, is that the repair mechanisms don't work perfectly. There are those lesions in DNA and chromosomes that are unrepairable. There are those where the repair mechanisms don't get to the site and so they go unrepaired. And there are those lesions where the repair mechanisms simply cause misrepair. We can say that between 50 and 90 percent of the damage done by ionizing radiation is repaired perfectly. What we are then seeing is harm done by the residual 10 or 40 or 50 percent that is not repaired perfectly. The evidence that the repair mechanism is not perfect is very solid today. What we wanted to have was evidence that as you go down to very low doses - a raed, or a tenth of a rad - is that going to produce cancer? Determing the answer by standard epidemiological studies would take millions of people, and we don't have that. So it creates a field day for the DOE to say, "Well, we don't know." But I looked very carefully in 1986 for any studies that could shed light on that all-important queston. And I presented that evidence at the American Chemical Society meeting in Anaheim. Q: That the lowest doses will produce cancer? Gofman: The answer is this: ionizing radiation is not like a poison out of a bottle where you can dilute it and dilute it. The lowest dose of ionizing radiation is one nuclear track through one cell. You can't have a fraction of a dose of that sort. Either a track goes through the nucleus and affects it, or it doesn't. So I said 'What evidence do we have concerning one, or two or three or four or six or 10 tracks.' And I came up with nine studies of cancer being produced where we're dealing with up to maybe eight or 10 tracks per cell. Four involved breast cancer. With those studies, as far as I'm concerned, it's not a question of "We don't know." The DOE has never refuted this evidence. They just ignore it, because it's inconvenient. We can now say, there cannot be a safe dose of radiation. There is no safe threshhold. If this truth is known, then any permitted radiation is a permit to commit murder. What other things does the DOE use as crutches? "Well, maybe if you give the radiation slowly it won't hurt as much as if you give it all at once." Now if you have one track through a cell producing cancer, what is the meaning of slowly? You have the track or you don't. It comes in on Tuesday or it comes in on Saturday. To talk about slow delivery of one track through the nucleus is ludicrous. But they do it anyway. There is a more radical fringe that says, "A little radiation is good for you. And all this stuff about radiation causing harm is bad for society because it's going to prevent the program we think should be instituted, and that program is to give everybody in the country radiation every day as a new vitamin." This program is called hormesis. "A little radiation will give your immune system a kick and help you resist cancer and infectious disease." The chief exponent is a man named Thomas Luckey, formerly of the University of Missouri. He bemoans the fact that we can't get this program into high gear. Q: Is anybody taking him seriously? Gofman: The idea is manifestly absurd. But that didn't prevent the DOE from helping to sponsor a conference in 1985 in Oakland on the beneficial effects of radiation, hormesis. And the nuclear enterprise is really at it all the time. They had another such conference in 1987, and another in 1992. Q: What are the implications of there being a safe dose of radiation? Gofman: They don't have to worry about nuclear waste. NO problem - there's a safe dose, nobody's going to get exposed to more than the safe dose. The clean-up and disposal of waste has been estimated to be in the billions, if they're really going to clean up Hanford and Savannah River and all the rest. Recently, Dr. Robert Alexander in an exchange of letters in the Health Physics Journal - he was with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and former president of the Health Physics Society - said there's no proof that low level radiation is harmful... Anybody who gets half a rad a year from waste disposal shouldn't be counted, they don't matter. They don't matter for somebody who's apologizing for the nuclear industry. But they matter! And they're going to matter in the millions, tens of millions and hundreds of millions if, because of statements like Alexander's, it becomes okay to give people 10 rads. You won't have to bury things in these fancy vaults. You won't have to worry about transport. You can even dispose of it in ordinary landfills. That will be the result. That's what the future will be. If low doses don't matter, the workers can get more and their families can get more by being in the vicinity. That's what we face. Q: What are the limits for lab technicians and other workers wearing badges? What's the limit now? Gofman: Five rems per year. That's going to be cut down to one or two rems per year. By the way, medical radiation, from x-ray machines, is roughly twice as harmful per unit dose as Hiroshima-Nagasaki radiation. Q: Why is that? Gofman: It's the effect of linear energy transfer. When gamma rays or x-rays set electrons in motion, the electrons are traveling at a lower speed than the electrons coming out of cesium-137. And as a result, when they're traveling at a lower speed, they interact much more with each micrometer of path they travel. Therefore the local harm is much greater. So medical x-rays set in motion electrons that are traveling at a lower speed and hence producing about twice the linear energy transfer, and hence twice the biological effect. That's why alpha particles from radium or plutonium are so much more devastating than beta rays set in motion from x-rays. The alpha particles, with their heavy mass and plus-2 charge, just rip through tissue so strenuosly that they don't go very far. A deception of the crassest sort are the lectures by pro-nuclear people showing a plutonium or radium source and putting up a piece of paper and showing that the alpha-particle radiation on the other side is zero. "You see, a piece of paper will stop those alpha particles, folks, there's no problem with plutonium." Except when that alpha particle is lodged next to an endosteal cell in the bone and producing a horrendous amount of interaction. Or that alpha particle is lodging on the surface of the bronchi - that's why we've got an epidemic of lung cancer among the uranium miners! The fact that they don't travel far is because they interact like hell! Q: Do you think medical professionals really appreciate how much potential there is for damage? Regardless of who you are, you go into the hospital and you get a chest x-ray as a routine diagnostic procedure. Gofman: I'm sad to say, I don't think 90% of doctors in this country know a god-damned thing about ionizing radiation and its effect. Somebody polled some pediatricians recently and said "Do you believe there's a safe dose of radiation?" And 45% said "Yes." They weren't asked, "What papers have you ever read on this subject that led you to conclude there's a safe dose?" I think medical education on the hazard of radiation is atrocious. What have they taught you in radiology? Basically, whenever it's not necessary, don't do a radiological procedure. But they have qualified that with the implication that most radiological procedures really aren't that dangerous - a tenth of a rad here really isn't too bad. It's better to get the information from a procedure than not. Part of that is okay. If you ask me, "Do you stand against medical x-rays?" the answer is no. And I've written a book with Egan O'Connor on the health effects of common exams. We take the position: if there's a diagnostic gain for you - something that can really make a difference in your health and your life - then don't forego the x-ray. But there's another part of the picture. Up till recently - it may be a little better now than it was - government studies show that most hospitals and most offices of radiologists didn't have the foggiest notion of what dose they were giving you for a procedure. Nor did they know that the procedure could be accomplished with a third or a tenth of the dose. Joel Gray, a health physicist at the Mayo Clinic, said there are places giving you 20 times the dose needed for a given picture. And, he said, "If you ask those people and they can't answer, you can be fairly confident that they're giving you a bigger dose than necessary." So Egan and I, inThe Health Effects of Common Exams, took the data on what the average doses were in the United States, versus what has been accomplished by some elegant work in Toronto to reduce the dose to one-third of what was the average practice in 1984, and found that about 50,000 fatal cancers per year could be prevented. That's a million and a half in a generation! So what is this stuff about "Most procedures don't hurt you, they're small?" Let me say one more thing about the medical profession. It's my view that we have a really crazy situation with respect to x-rays. You go to a physician - your internist, or a GP, or an obstetric gynecologist, or an orthopedic surgeon - these are the people who send you out for an x-ray. They represent, or should, your ombudsperson. And they, not you, should have to find out whether the facility they're sending you to sends 5 times the dose needed, or a decent dose of radiation. But if you ask that so-called ombudsperson, "Where you're sending me, do they know how to keep the dose down? What dose will I get?" He'll mumble, "Don't worry about it, no problem." That's the fault of medical education in our universities. If we turn out physicians who don't have the attitude that they're the ombudsman for things like that, I think they're not doing the job. Q: A friend who had a melanoma was told there had been a 20-fold increase in the past 50 years, but "We don't really know what's causing it." It's as if many in the medical profession don't want to make the obvious connection between radiation, pollution, pesticides and the cancer rates. Gofman: The medical profession is implicated directly. I've spoken to Dr. Andre Bruwer, who practices in Tucson. He's a first-class radiologist who does nothing but mammography. And he said, "John, I shudder to think of what we were doing 20 years ago." We were touting mammography when the dose was four to five rads, and in some cases 10 rads. Now if you give enough women four to five rads, at something of the order of a 2 percent increase in breast-cancer rate per rad - that's what my analyses show, and I've analyzed the world data on x-rays very carefully with respect to breast cancer in particular - it has to be that women irradiated 15, 20 years ago got horrendous doses from mammography compared to now. And therefore, some of the present increase in breast cancer has to be from the radiation they got; but they don't like to talk about it. There was a time, 20-30 years ago, when there were mobile x-ray units that gave x-rays of the chest. They didn't give the 20 millirads [a 50th of a rad] that is possible today. They gave about 5 rads. Children went through those things by the thousands. And we just say "We don't know why this cancer epidemic is taking place now." Nobody's taken account of it. It's hard to know how many children got it and who they were and follow them up. But you know that a certain number of people are having cancers now as a result of what was done 15, 20 years ago. Back in the '50s one woman brought a child in in the middle of the night having real difficulty breathing, and a resident said, "Maybe the thymus gland is enlarged and pressing on the trachea. Let's give this child a 100 or 150 rads of radiation in the neck." And as with many disorders, the child got better by morning. And so this resident put two and two together and said, "I gave the radiation, the child got better, therefore I cured him." And so this became the rage and all kinds of hospitals were using radiation to treat an enlarged thymus. Q: What's the danger from an enlarged thymus? Gofman: There have been careful studies now of these kids that had the irradiation for enlarged thymuses - which, by the way, is no longer believed to have been a disease that existed in the first place - and they're having an excess of thyroid cancers, an excess of salivary gland cancers. One hospital in Pittsburgh said "Why should we wait till these children come into the emergency room at night with croup?" And they, for a period of over a year, gave x-rays to every child leaving the nursery... There is this wall that prevents us from relating past experience to the occurence of cancer. The full effects are not known. It's not just what the average dose was back then, some places were giving horrendous doses. Sometimes they'd get a picture that was too faint. So they'd take another one, with a longer exposure - when the problem was that their developing solution was getting spent. And all they had to do was change the developer. But instead of that they gave the person an extra x-ray with a bigger dose. Q: What general principles should a patient bear in mind when considering a procedure? Gofman: If I were a member of the public, knowing what I know: if the establishment told me that something had a certain risk, I'd assume that the true risk was at least 10 times worse. Part of the problem comes from the patient. If a patient goes to a doctor - especially if he's covered by a health plan - and the doctor doesn't give him any procedures, they feel cheated. "You didn't even take an x-ray!" But the medical profession has to be regarded as culpable, along with the DOE. They both have the same conflict of interest: their work exposes people to radiation. For the DOE there have been all kinds of people of shady character in all kinds of government posts. But damnit, the medical profession shouldn't be shady and corrupt. I'd like to see them really apply the Hippocratic oath to this field. Q: Could you describe your work regarding the retroactive tampering with databases? Gofman: For years I've tried to believe that what was going on in Hiroshima-Nagasaki in what was called the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission - subsequently renamed the Radiation Effects Research Foundation - was the only place where we had a huge body of data that addressed the question of what happens to people who have been exposed to varying doses. If there is an event like Chernobyl, or Hiroshima, we have to insist on the sacred meaning of collecting an honest database concerning what happens to people - A. doing the very best job of determining what dose they got, and B. doing a follow-up study that is beyond reproach. That is an obligation to humanity that is virtually sacred. If you do anything less than the best in that kind of endeavor, you're a scoundrel. So all this time I wanted to believe in the work that was being done in the Hiroshima Nagasaki stuidies. In 1986, because of some questions about what the neutron dose was relative to the other forms of radiation - gamma rays, primarily - they did a revision of the doses. Now I don't have any objection to the revision of doses, provided that you obey the cardinal rules of medical research. The first cardinal rule of medical research is: never, but never change the input data once you know what the follow-up shows. So because they had this idea of changing the doses, they didn't just change the doses, they shuffled all the people from one dose category to another, with a new dose. So there was no continuity with everything that had been done up to 1986. Q: Who's 'they?' Gofman: The Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Japan. The director is Itsuzo Shigematsu. The associate director is a guy by the name of Jupe Thiessen who's from the DOE. It's a DOE-sponsored endeavor - DOE and the Japanese Ministry of Health. There couldn't be a worse set of sponsors. Q: The Japanese have the same kind of commitment to nuclear energy? Gofman: Absolutely. So I said, "You can't do this. You want a new dosage, keep the new groupings and just assign the new dose and study [the results]." I call that "constant cohort, dual dosimetry." So I wrote a letter to Shigematsu and said "This is a violation of the cardinal rules of research. There is a way to do this correctly, and you can keep changing doses all your life, provided you just stick them alongside what you've done originally." Shigematsu's reply is on my book. [Radiation-Induced Cancer from Low-Dose Exposure, 1990] It's simple. He said, "Trust us." Well, the reason for the cardinal rule of research is, nobody ever has to say "Trust me." Because you set things up with blinding, with appropriate procedures, so that your data base is immaculate. You don't go changing things and say, "Well we did it objectively." I said, "Report in the old way - the old dosage - and the new way." They said, "We won't do that. But we'll consider it. And we will give you the data in the old way for three more years." What's the shape of the cancer curve with the latest data from Hiroshima-Nagasaki? If I use the old data, it's like this (diagonal line). What's the shape of the curve with their new dosimetry? It's like this (slowly rising line that then goes up abruptly). Q: Making it look as if the low-level of radiation is acceptable? Gofman: Exactly. Their ultimate goal is fulfilled. Q: How did they determine who received what dosage at the time of the explosion? Was it based on how far away they were from ground zero? Gofman: Distance was the biggest factor, but also whether you were outdoors or indoors, whether you were in a concrete or wooden structure. They tried to do a lot of that. And they shouldn't keep changing the placement of people! You take people with cancer and say, "Well, I guess the dose they originally got must have been a lot higher. We'll put that person here [in this dose category] and this one there." And with that sort of approach, you can make truth whatever you want it to be. And there's a very important additional lesson. Humanity needs to insist on the emaculate construction of databases concerning any accident or major event. If a crook makes the database, Einstein will get the wrong answer out of it. And then what happens? The Einsteins, with the best credentials, using this lousy, fabricated, false database, put their findings in the medical journals. And then they get into the textbooks. And then it's taught to medical students for the next 100 years. And what happens? Hundreds of millions of people will suffer from cancer and genetic diseases because the answer will be wrong. The key thing is getting an honest database. PS 1/31/07 Bill Clinton in due course ditched O'Leary, who had resisted power-industry pressure to privatize government labs and production facilities. By an amazing coincidence she was shown the same door as Lanny Guinier and Jocelyn Elders. Fred Gardner edits O'Shaughnessy's, the journal of cannabis in clinical practice. He can be reached at fred [at] plebesite.com --------16 of 17-------- [This story is too good not to reprint. -ed] From: Jeanne Weigum <jw [at] ansrmn.org> To: St. Paul Issues Forum <stpaul-issues [at] forums.e-democracy.org>, Subject: Re: [SPIF] Wildlife drama in St. Paul Inspired by a mouse story, I dug up an old adventure of my own. This took place about 4 years ago. Jeanne Weigum, Mousefree in Merriam Park. -- Sometimes you have to tell on yourself. This is one of those times. My two cats, Etosha and Noodlebush, are both elderly and seem to have completely abandoned their hunting interest and responsibility. The result is a house over-run with mice. Mice in the basement. Mice in the attic. Mice in the kitchen. Mice in the pantry. And yes, mice in the Etosha's room. Etosha and Noodle have separate rooms because Etosha is so elderly and frail that Noodlebush, AKA Fat Cat, would eat all her Fancy Feast. I am completely inept at loading the old fashioned spring traps so have given up on that. I tried a mousey version of the "have a heart" trap but no mice ever entered it so I returned it. I tried the new, easy to load plastic traps. They are easy to load, easy to bait, and apparently easy to eat out of. I have never actually caught a mouse, but have lost a lot of peanut butter bate. I bought one of the gizmos that emits a high pitched sound which is so high pitched that neither you nor your dog can hear it, but it drives mice so crazy they simply move on, that is, if you put it on the "b" setting. On the "a" setting it drives spiders crazy and they leave. Yah. And the emperor has some nice clothes too. So I opted for glue boards. The directions suggest putting them against the wall and behind things so kitties will not accidently get into them. Fair enough. The implication is that these are humane because the mouse is so upset by being caught in a puddle of glue that he instantly(and always) has a heart attack and dies, also instantly. After finding mouse droppings all along the edge of the wall and leading up to the cat's food dish, I decided that putting one in Etosha's room was in order. I carefully put it behind a box leaning against the wall. There were lots of droppings back there; it was all but a mousey super highway. With the box in front of it the cat was unable to accidently get into it. Every day I eagerly looked behind the box. More droppings. No mouse. Saturday morning I gave Fat Cat the run of the house for a while as Etosha had already picked away at her breakfast. I was in the kitchen and suddenly heard a great thumping and crashing around on the second floor. Ah, I though, Fat Cat has returned to her roots and is chasing down a miscreant mouse. After breakfast I went to investigate. No cat in sight. No mouse parts in sight. I looked behind the box to see if I had caught a mouse on the glue board. No glue board. NO GLUE BOARD! Something a lot larger than a mouse had clearly walked off with my glue board. I went hunting for Fat Cat. I found her curled up on the foot of my bed. I picked her up and felt something hard. The cat, the mouse and the glue board had become one with each other. The glue board was firmly stuck to the cat's foot and leg. The mouse had not yet suffered his fatal heart attack, but he did not look real good either. Probably something to do with being stuck to a pile of glue and nested under a 20# cat. Cat, mouse, glue board and I went to the bathroom where the light is better. The solution was not obvious but I decided to just try to pull the glue board off the cat. That more or less worked. The cat had a whole lot of glue on her, but she was free of the mouse and the board. I wanted to put the poor mouse out of his misery so figured the most humane thing to do now was to drown him. So I threw the glue board and mouse into the toilet. It floated. Great. This poor mouse must have concluded he was having the worst day of his life. Fat Cat and I were not doing so well either. I set her down on the floor and she became one with the bathroom rug. I extricated her from that and decided to put some toilet paper on the glue where it would stick. Then she could walk around without getting stuck. I am not at all sure why but that flat out didn't work. I was getting more glue on myself with each passing moment. I found the empty glue board box thinking there just had to be instructions on how to deal with this type of situation. Yes, there were. Trouble was, they were written in .6 type. I put the cat back down so I could find a magnifying glass. The cat got glue on the floor, my slacks and a pair of Cuddle Duds long johns. There was so much glue every where I was sort of hoping there was nothing left on the cat. Not. The .6 type suggested mineral spirits. I am not sure if mineral spirits means paint thinner, turpentine or if it something else all together. I gave up. I took Fat Cat back to her room and hoped her first stop would be the litter box. Then the glue would be covered with litter and at least it wouldn't get on anything else. I fished the floating mouse out of the toilet and decided that freezing was now the best option. Actually, the mouse actually did look mostly dead. He probably had died of confusion by this point. I left for work hoping that this problem would solve itself. Actually it sort of did. The cat had removed most of the glue from herself by the time I got home. There was quite a lot of missing hair but no missing skin. She did not seem happy. I busied myself at removing the glue from the bathroom rug, my clothes, the bath room floor and the hall floor. Sunday morning when I fed Etosha there were fresh mouse turds. Build a better mouse trap and..! [at] #%! Jeanne Weigum Merriam Park, Saint Paul [Good stories are about bad things that happen to other people. -ed] --------17 of 17-------- bumpersticker #2 ------------------------- Support Our Mercenaries ------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- - David Shove shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu rhymes with clove Progressive Calendar over 2225 subscribers as of 12.19.02 please send all messages in plain text no attachments To GO DIRECTLY to an item, eg --------8 of x-------- do a find on --8 impeach bush & cheney impeach bush & cheney impeach bush & cheney impeach bush & cheney
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