Nuke mania

Dr. John Gofman, the genius nuclear scientist and medical researcher, passed away last week at the age of 88. He was a principled man in an unprincipled agency, the Atomic Energy Commission. He lost his job and continued to suffer the unyielding attacks of shills within the industry that wanted to discredit him and his findings. Why? He dared to tell the truth. And we'd better keep listening to him through his writings, because the nuclear industry is trying to stage a comeback, as an 'answer' to global warming.

In a great article on The Free Press site, Harvey Wasserman recalls Dr. Gofman's work and his warnings. He was the chief medical researcher for the AEC, and as such, was expected to be a loyal foot soldier for them and help them get thousands of reactors built. Instead, he was honest with the public about his research, and as early as 1969 showed that even "normal" radioactive reactor emissions could kill 32,000 Americans per year.

"The decision to build nuclear power plants," Dr. Gofman said, "may very well be, for the first time, a decision that can result in the desecration of the Earth with respect for life for all future generations... I'm concerned about the fact that whether it melts down or doesn't melt down, you've created an astronomical amount of radioactive garbage which you must contain and isolate better than 99.99 percent perfectly, in peace and war, with human error and human malice, guerrilla activity, psychotics, malfunction of equipment…do you believe that there's anything you'd like to guarantee will be done 99.99 percent perfectly for a hundred thousand years?"

And now, after fifty years of costly power plants that have generated untold tons of unsafe nuclear waste, the industry wants us to let them build more, and with $50 billion or more in loan guarantees -- since of course, they know in advance what a boondoggle they are proposing. Instead, we should listen to the good doctor, and tell these clowns where they can shove their radioactive waste.