|
|
|||
|
|||
|
|
Government Unprepared for Nuclear Disaster Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., and Robert J. Cihak, M.D., The Medicine Men As the United States prepares to commemorate and grieve over the September 11 attack as well as Hurricane Katrina, a group of activist physicians released a report faulting the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for lack of preparedness (Geoff Morrell, ABC News, 8/31/06). There are no communication plans to tell the public whether to evacuate or shelter, no radiation-monitoring instruments, and little surge capacity in the medical system, complain some members of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR). There are also no public shelters and no plans to disseminate life-saving information on expedient shelter and radiation detection, notes Jane Orient, M.D., in a just-published article in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Ironically, the rudimentary U.S. civil defense system was dismantled, largely owing to anti-defense activism by PSR and others. The fallout shelter inventory, the state stockpiles of regularly calibrated radiation instruments, packaged disaster hospitals, and emergency communications were all casualties of PSR opposition. In a surprise twist of attitude PSR is now issuing updated "bombing runs" ("The U.S. and Nuclear Terrorism: Still Dangerously Unprepared," www.psr.org). In addition to calculating early casualties in an unprepared, unsheltered population, PSR redlines vast areas that would be "uninhabitable" for decades, with economic losses of trillions of dollars, based on the assertion that "there is no dose threshold at which exposure to radiation is safe." Their maps show scary plumes from a "dirty bomb," with doses ranging from 6 rem to as low as one-millionth of a rem. They fail to mention that below 100 rem there would be no acute symptoms, nor the biphasic dose-response curve for radiation exposure with beneficial effects over a wide range of low doses.
Story Continues Below
Volunteers Patrol San Francisco Bay Though not among the PSR scenarios, the detonation of a nuclear weapon in a port facility is one of the likelier possibilities. A RAND study showed that a 10-KT explosion in the Port of Long Beach could cause 60,000 immediate casualties and ten times as much economic damage as the Sept. 11 attacks (Greg Krikorian, LA Times, 8/16/06). According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), there were 650 cases of illicit trafficking of nuclear and radiation materials worldwide between 1993 and 2004. As of February, 75 percent of U.S. ports had no ability to screen for nuclear weapons, and only 5 percent of 11 million containers were inspected at all. The DHS is planning to install $1.15 billion worth of radiation detectors in U.S. ports by 2011. The new monitors will cost between $600,000 and $800,000 each. Currently, 14-foot, $180,000 pillars detect gamma rays and high-energy neutrons when container-laden trucks drive between them. However, truck drivers in a hurry drive can drive around the portal, stated Sandia Lab weapons subcontractor Stanley Glaros. Glaros and his team are trolling the waters of San Francisco Bay with a homemade detector costing about $12,000. His biggest headache, Glaros says, is that if he detects something, by the time he gets an official response it may be too late.
"Iıve been in this business since SALT I," Glaros said. "Itıs gonna happen; itıs just a question of when" (Mark Rutherford, Wired News, 8/22/06). While the entire U.S. effort is focused on interdiction ("prevention") rather than response and recovery, in contrast the city of Shanghai just announced completion of an underground bunker, constructed in total secrecy, that can accommodate 200,000 people. Its 2.5 miles of passages cannot compete in scale with the "Underground Great Wall" containing 19 miles of air-raid shelters, which was built beneath Beijing in the 1960s and 1970s (Jane Macartney, Times, 7/31/06). While there is always the requisite for remembrance and respect of past disasters such as September 11, we must also remember to respond with resourcefulness and readiness for those events that will come to pass in an increasingly dangerous world of the future. Contact Drs. Glueck and Cihak by e-mail. Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., comments on medical-legal issues and is a Visiting Fellow in Economics and Citizenship at the International Trade Education Foundation of the Washington International Trade Council. He is Board Certified in Radiology and Nuclear Medicine. Robert J. Cihak, M.D., is a Senior Fellow and Board Member of the Discovery Institute and a past president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.
Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
Print Page 
Forward Page 
|
| All Rights Reserved © 2012 NewsMax.Com |