You may sleep on it. You may ingest it. You may wear it. It
is your best friend-recycled radioactive metal. Under special
licenses, courtesy of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), “decontaminated”
radioactive metals are sold to the American public in the form
of everyday household products such as knives, forks, zippers,
pot, pans, eyeglasses, and belt buckles.
Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Well, the situation gets
worse. The DOE along with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
and the radioactive metal processing industry are pushing for
new standards that would allow companies to recycle millions
of tons of low-level “hot (radioactive) metal” a year.
By the same token, they want to increase their radioactive output
to 10 millirems a year, which is a 100 percent increase over
the current standards.
According to NRC reports, an additional 100,000 Americans
will die of cancer annually if the dosage standards increase.
There is no way in hell the American public would approve such
measures. And the U.S. government knows that. So, to undermine
our authority, the government goes behind our backs to put their
nasty, selfish agendas into action. We are contaminated without
representation. And the government makes quick money at our expense.
One of the basic principles on which our government was founded
is consent of the governed. John Locke, a natural rights philosopher
of the 17th century, believed that the government gets its right
to govern from the permission of the people. In 1776, Thomas
Jefferson incorporated this concept into the Declaration of Independence.
Jefferson wrote, “Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed,
that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these
Ends it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.”
Jefferson would be very upset with the “destructive”
ways of the DOE. The government has blatantly bypassed the people’s
authority on this radioactive issue. It is downright dirty business.
According to Progressive reporter Anne-Marie Cusac,
scientists warn that exposure to regular low-dose radiation like
“’hot metal” household products is more dangerous
than a one-time, high-level exposure.
“Serious, lethal effects from minimal radiation doses
are not hypothetical, just theoretical, or imaginary. They are
real”, John Gofman, a former associate director at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory, told The Progressive. In the 1980s,
14 Americans developed finger cancer and many more had fingers
amputated because they wore radioactive jewelry.
In 1996, according to Sonoma State University researcher Jason
Sanders, the DOE disposed of 7,500 tons of “hot metal”
acute; for American consumer production. But, as the metal processing
industry waits for approval of the new standards, radioactive
metal is sold to other countries. According to Sanders, in 1996
the U.S. shipped 78 tons of radioactive scrap metal to China,
which exceeds the country’s safety limits by thirtyfold.
In 1998, 178 buildings in Taiwan were identified as “’hot.”
Similar circumstances may be in store for us.
Rationalizing is the key for employees in the “hot metal”
industry. In their minds, they have distorted this gruesome issue
to the point of absurdity. Val Loiselle, chairman of the Association
of Radioactive Metal Recyclers, commented about the new proposed
standards to The Progressive.
“The public health is better served by something measurable,”
Loiselle said. “In a sense, that means a looser or a less
stringent standard. Wouldn’t it be better if it were something
we could measure?”
Shankar Menon of Menon Consulting in Sweden echoes Loiselle’s
opinion but with even more flippancy. “I was born a Hindu,
and a central feature of the Hindu religion is reincarnation,”
Menon explained. “And being trained as an engineer, it’s
just a short stop to the recycling of metals. I’m actually
thinking of the soul in them.
Congress should not approve the new “hot metal”
standards. Furthermore, the government needs to revoke the current
licenses of these metal-processing companies. The more power
the government gives to these people, the less control it will
have in the future if a nuclear conflict arises.
The government betrayed us. Now, our lives are at stake. So,
next time you’re studying in your cozy armchair (which has
metal pieces), remember you might be the next cancer victim thanks
to our trustworthy government.