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Thursday, August 23, 2012

Dr. Jeff, Have You Ever Heard Of Triage?

This is a long video, and I haven't and won't watch it all. Apparently it represents a portion of a recent anti-nuclear forum.  A little birdie told me to watch Dr. Jeff Patterson who comes on at abut 1:14:00:


In this post, I mentioned the right-wing Doctors For Emergency Preparedness, who intentionally downplay the risk of radiation health effects.

The Ying to that Yang are the left-wing  Physicians For Social Responsibility, who have a tendency to exaggerate radiation health effects.  Dr. Patterson is associated with that group.

I was initially impressed (not really, because I knew a switcheroo was in the works) because he discussed the National Academy Of Sciences (NAS), BEIR VII report, which reflects our best understanding of radiation health effects.  He even said as much in the video!

But I also realized in doing so he's put himself in a dilemma.  How can he fear-monger, which is his schtick, if he sticks with BEIR VII?

So I wasn't the least bit surprised when he quickly ducked "stage left" and ignored BEIR VII after mentioning it. Yet. by mentioning the document, he primes the audience to think that what he is going to discuss in his talk is consistent with the NAS findings.  Nice trick, but not new.

So what we have is a physician who acknowledges in the video that medicine radiation exposure is the largest contributor to our excess radiation doses.  He's right about that!  I just had a post on that topic.

But his talk is centered on denouncing the "nuclear-industrial" complex.  Doesn't he understand triage (a medical concept)?  His focus should have been on denouncing the "medical-industrial" complex, if he's REALLY concerned with excess radiation exposure.

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