THE ANSWER TO CHERWELL
1957The NewsletterJ. H. Bradley Read the scan at ETOL (PDF) →Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: headlines and words can be misread, and a caption or advert can run into the text. For anything you quote, read the scan.
by J. H. Bradley Lorn CHrRWELL’s recent statements on the H-pomb are condemned by all responsible scientific opinion.
Cherwell says: “A year or so ago the Medical Research Council. composed of the most eminent men in the profession. appointed a committee of doctors and scientists... Broadly they gave facts and figures showing that the tests will not harm any of us.”
But Professor S. C. Harland. of Manchester University. wrote: ‘L wish to state categorically that, as a physicist with no knowledge of biology. |ord Cherwell may be classed with the Pope and Dr. Albert Schweitzer as not competent to erpress an opinion on radiation hazards. A similar comment might be made about some members of the MRC's committee.’
Anyone whe has read the MRC report will hardly share Lord Cherwell’s opinion about its cenclusions: ‘In view of the inadequacy of present knowledge. however. we do not feel justified in naming a specific figure as a limit for the average exposure of the whole population.”
Cherwell asserts: “Doctors are rightly very cautious in all these things and I feel sure that this limit they have set is. if anything. on the low side.” No doubt that is why the American standard was recently reduced to one-third of the former value. and why the MRC was so alarmed about the danger of the whole population receiving one-tenth of the dose for a small group of professional workers.
‘But even so, it is at least a thousand times higher than corresponds to the amount of strontium 90 which our bones contain as a result of all the tests up to date.” Yes—but only a hundred times higher than for young children—only ten times higher than for Welsh sheep—and so in danger of approaching the MRC limit. which some sheep have reached.
In any case, the amount will continue to increase for years even if the tests are stopped now. due to the strontium already piled up in the stratosphere.
The Manchester Guardian reported on April 29, 1957; "A study of human-bone samples-by three Columbia University scientists disclosed one sample in Western Canada which contained approximately the maximum permissible concentration of strontium 90 in 1955—and this could have come