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To the Editor: 

Mr. Mark McDonald of the anti-Lawrence Lab faction has commented on my July 12 letter, attacking both my character and the accuracy of my statements. May I respond to the most egregious distortions and inaccuracies? 

1. I had noted that seven studies have shown that the tritium lab has never posed a health risk to Berkeley. Mr. Mc Donald claimed these studies have been "debunked", but he provided no information to support his assertion. Where are the studies that allegedly refute the findings of independent risk analysis scientists, the state department of health, the National Institutes of Health, and the U. S. Public Health Service? He said the work of these scientists is "laughable" because they "just quote LBNL numbers… " In fact, the data in these studies include measurements by independent testing laboratories, East Bay Municipal Utility District, the state’s cancer surveillance department, and the Environmental Protection Agency, not just LBNL itself.  

Last Friday, the EPA announced that tritium levels at LBNL were not a health risk. Their report confirms what each prior study had indicated – tritium levels in the air and ground around LBNL have been and continue to be far below hazardous concentrations. 

2. I stated that the Straume and Franke studies, both done by scientists chosen by Mr. McDonald’s group, had failed to support their contention that the tritium lab was hazardous. Mr. McDonald did not contest this statement but claimed that "the city-funded Straume report notes higher levels of cancer in affected neighborhoods…" In fact, Dr. Straume made no measurements of cancer incidence. He came to the same conclusion that all the other risk analyses reached – that the possible additional risk of getting cancer from the tritium lab was so small as to be hardly measurable. As he said, the risk of death from tritium-induced cancer for a resident living just adjacent to the lab was about one-half as likely as dying from the bite of a venomous animal. (The average lifetime risk of getting cancer is about 400,000 out of one million people. For people working 30 years at the Lawrence Hall of Science, exposure to tritium from the lab might theoretically increase their risk by 0.05 to 2.5 chances per million. As the scientists from the Senes Center for Risk Analysis reported, "no additional cases of cancer would be expected due to exposure to tritium releases from the NTLF (the tritium lab)." 

3. Nor does Mr. McDonald contest the conclusions of the Franke report. He criticizes Franke’s study on the grounds that the "tritium work was drastically reduced" during the two years on which Franke concentrated. In fact, the lab decreased its work load from its previous average of about 100 tritiations a year during a revamping of the lab in 1997; they resumed active work in 1998, reaching an average of 60 a year in the years before the lab was closed. This was taken into account by Franke. Those who heard Mr. Franke when he gave his 2001 report may recall him agreeing with another independent risk analyst that they had never seen a situation with so much concern over so small a risk. 

Mr. McDonald describes the Lawrence Hall of Science as a "radioactive museum". Franke stated that if he lived in Berkeley he would have no hesitation taking his children there.  

A telling example of Mr. McDonald’s cavalier approach to the truth is his statement "Also stated [ by Franke ] was that the LBNL itself had 119 mostly unmonitored stacks dumping radioactive poisons into the air." In fact, what Franke stated was this: "In 1999, there were 119 potential locations at LBNL where radioactive materials are present and could be released to the environment. This is hardly the same as "dumping radioactive poisons into the air." Nowhere in Franke’s report is there any basis for Mr. McDonald’s fearsome statement. 

5. Now that the tritium lab is inactive, Mr. McDonald and his friends have begun attacking LBNL on other fronts, claiming that LBNL is circumventing normal processes in dismantling the Bevatron. Had they bothered to telephone the lab for information, they would have learned that the demolition is proceeding exactly as required by law. Mr. McDonald referred to "thousands of truckloads of hazardous and radioactive debris"; in fact, most of the debris is neither. Only non-radioactive material will go to regional landfills, and radioactive material will be sent to appropriate disposal sites.  

It is not easy to understand the consistent pattern of disregard for facts that characterizes the anti-lab group. No matter how often their charges are shown to be fallacious, they return with new allegations and with increasingly personal attacks on those who disagree with them. Insults are not an adequate substitute for thoughtful examination of public issues; the CMTW and their allies are debasing the democratic process in Berkeley. 

Elmer R. Grossman, M.D. 

Berkeley