| UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY | ||
| BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA 94720 |
May 11, 1999
LETTER OF CONCERN.To Whom It May Concern:
During 1942, RobertE. Connick and I led the "Plutonium Group" at the Universityof California, Berkeley, which managed to isolate the first milligram of plutonium from irradiated uranium. (Plutonium-239 hadpreviously been discovered by Glenn Seaborg and Edwin McMillan.)During subsequent decades, I have studied the biological effectsof ionizing radiation --- including the alpha particles emitted by the radioactive decay of plutonium.
By any reasonablestandard of biomedical proof, there is no safe dose, which meansthat just one decaying radioactive atom can produce permanent mutation in a cell's genetic molecules. My own work showed this in1990 for xrays, gamma rays, and beta particles (Gofman 1990: Radiation-InducedCancer from Low-Dose Exposure). For alpha particles, thelogic of no safe dose was confirmed experimentally in 1997 by TomK. Hei and co-workers at Columbia University College of Physiciansand Surgeons in New York (Proceedings of the National Academy ofSciences (USA) Vol.94, pp.3765-3770, April 1997, "MutagenicEffects of a Single and an Exact Number of Alpha Particles inMammalian Cells").
It follows fromsuch evidence that citizens worldwide have a strong biological basisfor opposing activities which produce an appreciable risk of exposinghumans and others to plutonium and other radioactive pollution at anylevel. The fact that humans cannot escape exposure to ionizingradiation from various natural sources --- which may well account fora large share of humanity's inherited afflictions --- is no reason tolet human activities increase the exposure to ionizingradiation. The fact that ionizing radiation is a mutagen was firstdemonstrated in 1927 by Herman Joseph Muller, and subsequentevidence has shown it to be a mutagen of unique potency. Mutation is the basis not only for inherited afflictions, but also for cancer.
Very truly yours,
John W. Gofman, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology
