Mission Statement of the
Committee for Nuclear Responsibility (CNR)
709 Tall Oak Trail
Seneca, South Carolina, 29678, U.S.A.
Internet: https://ratical.org/radiation/CNR/
-
CNR is a non-profit educational group, organized in 1971 to
provide independent analyses of sources and health effects of
xrays and other ionizing radiations. The work is supported by
donations; logo by Malcolm Hancock.
-
Xrays. Radiation, ionizing. Cancer, prevention. Nuclear
power. Nuclear waste. Chernobyl. Threshold doses,
mutagens. Whistleblowing. Breast cancer. Thyroid
cancer. Hormesis. Hiroshima-Nagasaki, health
consequences. Birth defects.
-
One of our publications: Answers to 10 of the most frequently
asked questions about radiation health-effects.
A) THE TWO MAIN GOALS OF CNR:
-
One of CNR's priorities is to make actual progress in
preventing cancer, by helping other groups and individuals to
eliminate the careless xray overdosing which occurs today in
medicine. Xray dosage can be cut in half (or more) without
interfering with good diagnostic information. CNR supplies the
evidence for such action, and regards "getting the job done" as
an ethical imperative --- because every action which reduces
unnecessary irradiation is guaranteed to prevent a share of
future cancers which would otherwise occur.
-
A second function of CNR is helping other groups and
individuals to prevent additional nuclear pollution of the
planet. The importance of such prevention is supported by
CNR's detailed proof
that there is no safe dose (threshold dose) of
ionizing radiation with respect to causing mutations and human
cancer.
B) THE REAL REASON FOR OUR EXISTENCE:
-
The real reason for our existence is to counter the
unrealistic information provided by some other sources.
-
Radiation from xrays, nuclear pollution, and other sources
of ionizing radiation, can injure our genetic molecules --- DNA
and chromosomes. Radiation-induced damage cannot always be
successfully repaired by our cells because damage from ionizing
radiation can be especially complex. Cancer and inherited
afflictions are caused by damaged genetic molecules. Ionizing
radiation is a proven cause of human cancer. None of this is in
dispute, none of this is speculative.
-
Nevertheless, exposure to ionizing radiation is seldom
listed as a "risk factor" for cancer and inherited problems
--even though it may well be the single most important cause to
which everyone is exposed. Today, the largest sources of willful
radiation exposure are diagnostic medical irradiation and
work-related doses. In the future, nuclear pollution may exceed those
sources, if citizens become lazy watchdogs.
-
The powerful medical and nuclear industries do not educate
people realistically, in our opinion, about the aggregate
consequences of 200 million xray procedures per year in the USA,
and about the aggregate consequences of low-level nuclear
pollution. The tobacco industry was not the leader in warning
people about the health consequences of smoking, either.
-
CNR produces short (4-page) non-technical and technical
papers, and scholarly but comprehensible books. We are
especially active in supplying teachers, students, medical
patients, libraries, and other reseachers. We would be pleased
to help you, too. At
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/CNR/
Internet users can find the texts of some short papers plus the
text of many chapters from two of CNR's recent books at no
charge:
-
Radiation-Induced
Cancer from Low-Dose Exposure: An
Independent Analysis. 1990, by John W. Gofman. 480
pages. $29.95. CNR Books. ISBN 0-932682-89-8. Library of Congress
89-62431. This book was reviewed as "excellent" in the
New England Journal of Medicine,
Feb. 14, 1991 (Vol.324,
No.7: pp.497-498), and was also recommended for public and academic
libraries by Choice, a review journal of the American Library
Association (January 1991). This book includes the
disproof of
any threshold dose of ionizing radiation with respect to
cancer-induction and mutagenesis. Also it covers induction of
thyroid cancer by radio-iodine,
Chernobyl-induced cancer,
the A-Bomb Survivor Study,
retroactive alteration of databases,
variable latency periods, and the fallacy of hormesis.
-
Preventing Breast
Cancer: The Story of a Major, Proven,
Preventable Cause of This Disease. 2nd Edition. April 1996, by
John W. Gofman. 422 pages. $17.00. CNR Books. ISBN
0-932682-96-0. Library of Congress 96-2453. The first edition of
this book was "highly recommended" by the
Library Journal
(August 1995), and the journal Choice (December 1995)
recommended it for both college and professional libraries. This
book shows the basis for estimating that 75 percent of
current breast-cancer in the USA is due to earlier medical
irradiation; it quotes 1993 and 1995 admissions by the radiation
establishment that no threshold-dose exists; and it provides the
evidence that current xray dosage could be cut in half (or
more).
-
John William Gofman, M.D., Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of
Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California at
Berkeley. He shares patents on the fissionability of uranium-233
and on early processes for separating plutonium from fission
products; he led the team which discovered and characterized the
diverse lipoproteins so important in the causation of heart
disease; in 1963, he established the Biomedical Research
Division for the Livermore National Laboratory, where he was on
the cutting edge of research into the connection between
chromosomal abnormalities and cancer.
-
In 1970, when he and Dr. Arthur Tamplin found that radiation
was far more carcinogenic than admitted by the Atomic Energy
Commission, they publicly advocated a 5-year pause in licensing
additional nuclear power plants --- and they lost their research
grants as a consequence. Dr. Gofman has written five scholarly
books on the health effects of radiation exposure, and a sixth
is in preparation for 1997 publication. In 1992, he shared the
Right Livelihood Award ("the alternate Nobel Prize") for "his
pioneering work in exposing the health effects of low-level
radiation."
# # # # #
