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The Genius Doctor Who Diagnosed Nuke Power's Deadly Disease
The nuke power industry now wants $50 billion and more in loan guarantees to build new atomic reactors. As it strong-arms Congress, the warnings of the great Dr. John Gofman, who passed away last week at 88, loom ever larger.
One of history's most respected and revered medical and nuclear pioneers, Gofman's research showed as early as 1969 that "normal" radioactive reactor emissions could kill 32,000 Americans per year.
At the time, Gofman was the chief medical researcher for the Atomic Energy Commission. He told the AEC that reactor emissions must be radically reduced. The AEC demanded he change his findings, then forced him out when he refused.
Since then, reactor backers have ceaselessly and erroneously attacked Gofman and his findings. But they could hardly have picked a more brilliant, committed opponent. Gofman was both relentless and uncorrupted. His findings should have doomed from the start an industry he called "insane."
In addition to being a world-class nuclear chemist, Dr. John William Gofman was one of history's most important heart specialists. His pioneer research helped define our modern understanding about cholesterol, distinguishing "good" fatty acids from bad. Gofman's astonishing medical discoveries remain at the core of today's common wisdom about diet and heart disease.
For that work alone, Gofman was a towering figure. Throughout his life, he was friend and peer to Nobel Laureates such as Linus Pauling and George Wald.
But Gofman was also a nuclear chemist. As part of the Manhattan Project that built the first atomic bombs, his pioneer work helped lead to the discoveries of plutonium and certain isotopes of uranium.
Yet his career suffered from an inconvenient truth: when he discovered that atomic power plants kill people in large numbers, he refused to shut up about it.
As a full professor at the University of California, Gofman's combined medical and nuclear credentials made him an obvious choice to manage health research for the Atomic Energy Commission, which both regulated and promoted the young nuclear power industry. When public questions were raised about the health impacts of radioactive reactor emissions, Gofman was dispatched to prove the industry safe.
But his findings showed that reactors are serious killers. So even Gofman's towering resume could not protect him from the wrath of an industry determined to build all the power plants it could. He and co-researcher Arthur Tamplin were driven from their jobs.
When their POISONED POWER detailed the killing potential of atomic energy, Gofman and Tamplin were attacked mercilessly by an industry with immense investments to protect. The experience showed that no matter how impeccable their credentials, and no matter how thorough their research, any scientists whose findings might indicate problems with atomic power would be automatically "discredited" by industry flacks to who did no comparable research.
Even at his passing, the tired attacks on Gofman's findings have resurfaced.
But his research remains the gold standard on the health impacts of radiation. And as a gentle but firm advocate, mentor and friend, his integrity was matched only by his willingness to step outside traditional boundaries for what he believed.
One of Gofman's most powerful and influential moments came in 1974, when he agreed to defend a civil disobedient named Sam Lovejoy in the small town of Montague, Massachusetts. A member of a communal organic farm, Lovejoy had manually knocked over a 500-foot weather tower erected as a precursor to the building of a large twin reactor complex.
Gofman agreed to testify in Lovejoy's defense, arguing that building two nuke reactors constituted a lethal threat to the health and safety of the community. In a monumental moment for the rise of the anti-nuclear movement, Lovejoy was acquitted.
Gofman's pivotal pronouncements appear in the award-winning LOVEJOY'S NUCLEAR WAR (gmpfilms.com), which has been shown all over the world. As a pivotal struggle over a "bailout in advance" for new reactor construction rages in Congress, Gofman's words resonate with a renewed critical importance:
"The decision to build nuclear power plants," he 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.
"Why do we want to put every city and hamlet of the United States at risk by building a thousand of these plants? We can get the power from sunshine, very easily and economically.
"When we're talking about a mass of a hundred tons or so of material, melting 5,000 degrees Farenheit, with water around, with hydrogen being generated and burning explosively, melting through concrete into soil, when someone tells me that we're sure it isn't going to go far away, I say that I've heard various forms of insanity, but hardly this form.
"Even if this hazard of a meltdown were securely answered, it doesn't alter for one second my opposition to nuclear power, because 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, guerilla 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?
After fifty years of proven failure, the nuke power industry is demanding still more taxpayer handouts to create still more of this waste.
The great and good Dr. John W. Gofman warned us all against this insanity. His words and spirit remain at the core of what must be done to save this planet.
Harvey Wasserman is senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, and Senior Editor of www.solartopia.org and www.freepress.org, where this article first appeared. For a fuller account of the amazing life of Dr. John Gofman, see www.beyondnuclear.org.
© 2007 The Free Press
18 Comments so far
Show AllThe old AEC and the current NRC both have the same problem and conflict of interest. Both agencies are tasked with promoting the peaceful use of nuclear power. So they are advocates for more nuclear power.
At the same time, the same agency is responsible for protecting the public health and safety from nuclear power. Trying to do both at the same time is a conflict of interest. As seen in the reaction Mr. Wasserman describes to Dr. Goffman's studies.
Thanks ezflyer for the quote. I read the whole piece twice and in vain trying to see where Mr. Wasserman would actually tell me what he was talking about. I generally agree with Mr. Wasserman on this issue (and most other issues I've seen him write about). But to me he goes way overboard on hype and tends to be lacking in actual facts. Like telling me that Dr. Goffman was concerned about ionizing radiation from the plants.
"Ionizing radiation may well be the most important single cause of cancer, birth defects and genetic disorders... The stakes for human health are very, very high in radiation matters. It is essential that people take no chance that conflict-of-interest is producing radiation databases which cannot be trusted."
John Gofman
When I ever see "great and good" associated with "researcher" I think of someone like J Marion Sims. He was great and good too depending on who you ask. To whites he was worthy of being President of the American medical Association and getting a statue in his name. To black slaves he was the devil incarnate.
I just hope when you mention heart research he didnt go down the cowardly sadist's path and leave a trail of tortured rats and monkeys. Someone who wants to help A by torturing B isnt a nice guy. You dont help a homeless man by kicking someone else out of their house. But there are lots of ethically challenged scientists out there, and the ones who do follow the Hippocratic Oath and refuse to do harm are often sidelined by the other type.
Plus, if he was part of the Manhatten project then I guess he was also known for doing his part to help melt a couple of Japanese cities(I will hope he wasnt one of those psychotic scientists who took bets to see if the atmosphere would ignite from splitting the atom).
I know--we had to stop the Germans--but I dont think janitors were going to build nukes on their side--I am sure the team would have been scientists. So both sides are to blame for being willing to develop a new even deadlier type of weapon.
Someone who goes on a rampage with a knife or gun can be condemned on one level-but university educated people who plan patiently for months and years to commit an atrocity, whether in a lab or on a city's population, are on a different level of contempt.
But at least Gofman was trying to redeem some of his actions, unlike some other members of the Manhatten project who thought decimating every plant and animal life within Nagasaki and Hiroshima's city limits was a good thing.
We need to reach a point where scientists dont need to be correcting mistakes committed by scientists. That doesnt sound like progress, but damage control.
Whatever he may have been as a person Kelmer, he was correct about the utter stupidity of nuclear power, it don't take a heart surgeon or a nuclear scientist to realize it either.
The major problem lies with the big money boys who run this country and the government. Those greedy bastards who will discredit someone such as this doctor and have their way.___ Like slave merchants and masters did.
When is this irrational hysteria about nuclear energy going to end. We're already 20 years or more behind and it will take decades and likely trillions to build the new generation reactors we should have been building.
Hi Billy, you are aware of the costs we incur to store nuclear waste. We all are fully aware that it is impossible to 'safely' store nuclear waste, there have been numerous incidents of leaked, deadly nuclear waste that have occurred. Just ONE example is the Hanford facility, there are many others. When the costs of nuclear energy are computed, the costs of storing the waste forever are not part of the equation.
If we shut down every single nuclear reactor in the country tomorrow, we would have to store millions of tons of nuclear waste forever. What benefit would we recieve in return for those annual billions in costs? Not a sinlgle thing, except the fear of it getting loose into the enviroment and or destroying forever, precious water tables and aquifers.
Now Billy, we are aware that natural uranium is in the enviroment, in the blocks of granite used in buildings. Is it necessary to store those buildings or bananas in metal containers and keep them safe from the public? __ No! __ Of course not, your analogy is wasted and pointless, nuclear waste produced by man in nuclear power plants is the deadliest substance known to exist in the universe, it must be safely stored for many thousands of years. It will not be however, for another example DU is sold to munitions manufacturers for weapons of war.___ Insanity at its best.
Is nuclear enetgy far better than burning coal? Yes. Are both dangerous and unnecessary? Yes, if the money spent to enhance nuclear was used to create viable, clean alternatives, we could close down every coal fired and nuclear power plant eventually, perhaps within five years if a massive effort to build soalr/wind power plants was inacted. It could be and should be done, we cannot afford a disasterous nuclear power plant accident, or afford to store nuclear waste. We attempt to, and have paid to do so in a hap-hazard manner. ___ We can't afford it.
DU tipped munitions: the ultimate answer to the prayer of every American NIMBY. Don't get me wrong, I don't want that stuff in my back yard either, or anybody's back yard.
Sol will go nova before enough time has elapsed to punish the crimes of this administration.
Yes indeed Vince. Of course that is another lie the government told about DU. Tipped DU ammunition? An Abrams tank shell is ten pounds of solid DU, a 30mm Gatling round is 3.5 pounds of DU with a thin copper coating. Every burned shell spews billions of nano-particles of death into the air, it's blowing in the wind. Hundreds of thousands of tons of DU has been burned so far since the mid 1960s. DU ammo is used daily all over the world by at least thirty contries, who test fire it or use it to wage war.
Truthfully I never heard of this Scientist. I do believe he was shouted down that evidence comes you light everyday with the Anti Global Warming people.
I often thought it funny that so many taxpayers are always against Americans accepting Wefare ,but her we have the Nuclear Industry that would not exist if it wasn't for the US government underwriting them. maybe the Nuclear Industry doesn't have BOOTSTRAPS I mean look this industry is even covered in case of a meltdown , lawsuits will only be allowed to go so high. and I would bet the monies the nuclear industries is suppost to contribute are not there . It most likely is like corporate contributions to their workers retirement programs.
Nuclear Power has never been a cheap source of energy. I mean we don't even add in the cost of the long term storage of the Nuclear waste or the environmental damage cause by the mining of uranium.
I live about 40 miles from TMI. Yep you still can see the no longer used cooling tower. They claim they cleaned up everything from the accident. Hauled it away they did. Where? Haven't a clue!. The other unit at TMI just got permission to produce electricity II believe for another 30 years. Hey I will be dead long before that time ends.But new generaations wil have to dismantle that dinosaur. will they have a place to put it?
want to bet our Government will foot that bill?
Yes it is ashame about the death of that scientist. I wonder in 10 ,15 or 20 years from now somebody will dig up his research from way back when and say 'LOOK AT THIS They Did Know but went ahead with the nuclear program anyway"
"The NRC has its act together," sez Billy.
Well, maybe--it's been some years since I closely followed the issue--but I tend to doubt it. Here's a little story that illustrates why:
I was living in Portsmouth, NH, at the time the Seabrook nuke plant was brought back from the dead--must have been about 1989. Before obtaining an operating license from the NRC, the utility had to conduct a series of low-power tests to demonstrate that the plant could be operated safely. Well, during one of these tests, there was a very disturbing incident that was all over the local papers (Seabrook is at one end, Portsmouth at the other, of New Hampshire's very short coastline), but may not have gotten much attention outside the area.
Anyway, during one of these tests the reaction began to get out of control ... I don't recall the specific nature of the problem, but I think there was a potential for a substantial radiation release. The NRC observers in the control room ordered the operators to shut down the reactor immediately; the operators simply ignored them, and allowed the process to run 10 or 15 minutes longer.
And what did the NRC do about the utility workers' defiance of their direct orders?
Absolutely nothing.
IN 1975 during a Congressional hearing, the NRC and AEC finally grudgenly admitted, that world wide, there were several thousand TONS of plutonium missing and unaccounted for. When questioned further, they stated the most deadly poison known to exist in the universe, was "presumed" to have been 'lost' in the industrial process. ___ A frightening presumption one would believe.
Wonder how much plutonium is missing by the year 2007?
You are correct Billy, I mis-typed. "WORLD WIDE", it was thousands of pounds missing, not tons. Thank you for the correction.
The point is, a 'strictly controlled' and regulated, most deadly substnce, was un-accounted for, "lost". You know, two graduate students at MIT, once designed a workable atomic bomb from information they gleaned from the college library. All they needed for a big blast, was a cup or two of plutonium or highly enriched uranium.
The plutonium wasn't and isn't lost, we just don't know what happened to it. As one retired atomic worker at a storage site in Tennessee reported to a Senate investigating committee, "We used to take that shit and put it in empty box cars and roll them onto abadoned railroad tracks". _____ "STRICTLY CONTROLLED"!
Human nature as it is, 'man made' structures and the necessary hardware required to build an atomic power plant, insure it is impossible to believe, that there will not be serious accidents at those and atomic waste storage sites.
"Nuclear Power" is a misnomer. It is not clean and in fact is a primitive technology kept alive by economic interests.
With solar cells, windmills, and dams, we can speak of sun, wind and water power -- the energy source goes directly to the mechanism producing the electicity.
Nuke is exactly the same as coal- and oil-fueled power plants -- something is used to generate heat which turns water into steam, which turns the turbines.
Besides that, there is no way on earth to completely isolate the "peaceful" use of nukey energy from "military".
Crikey, the "cleanest" Uranium Lite (aka DU) comes from nuke power plants (some DU comes from weapons production and is contaminated even more with traces of plutonium and the nastier uranium isotopes).
Also to be seriously considered is bioenergy: biofuels from biomass. There are many alternative forms, with the most recent being biocoal.
I encourage you to follow
http://biopact.com
to see how rapidly bioenergy is taking hold (elsewhere in the world).