"safe nuclear" on ships...how many times has McCain had Cancer?

[goodboy]

Does cumulative exposure to radiation have anything to do with his cancer?


Could he be sicker than he's letting on? Stammering, quivering voice...

Making the mistake of telling elderly voters he'll cut medicare? Maybe he's thinking of his legacy should he win, and the mistake of picking McPalin...

just sayin'

[goodboy]

1. seemed frail too (nt)

[Chloroplast]

2. My fear with nuclear power has always been the unknown health risks.

I wondered whether his exposure to 'safe nuclear' during his Navy days exacerbated his bouts with cancer.

[goodboy]

3. he may be sicker than he's letting on...(nt)

[codjh9]

4. Not to defend McCain one iota, but he's had melanoma, which is usually from too much

sun exposure... I don't know if he got to much as a POW or in AZ or both.

[goodboy]

8. I'm just wondering if the 'safe nuclear' exposure could

exacerbate his skin cancer...

[DogPoundPup]

5. "safe nuclear" on ships...how many times has McCain had Cancer?

He's too blinded by lobbyi$$$T$$$$$$ to put two and two together.

:rofl:

[davepc]

6. We've been using nuclear power on ships/subs since the 1950s

If there was some sort of evidence that service on a nuclear powered warship caused increased cancer rates in a population it would of come to light in the past 50 years.

[goodboy]

9. I understand what you're saying, but new research into

low grade radiation from cell phones is cause for concern.

and besides, what makes anyone think the military would admit that their ships harm their sailors?

[davepc]

19. You cant compare holding a device directly against your head to working behind layers of shielding

that separate the individual from the reactor space

[endthewar]

13. There was a story earlier this year about a US nuclear sub leaking radioactive water.

Leaking it into the sea. So it won't harm the Navy personnel, just the fish.

[Canuckistanian]

14. Jimmy Carter was a reactor operator, wasn't he?

They don't let the stupid people in those engine rooms.

[The Shadow]

18. Jimmy Carter Is An Extremely Smart Individual

He was an engineer on a nuclear submarine.

[Nevernose]

7. Obama lost a BIG opportunity on that question

He should have mentioned the inherent danger of nuclear waste storage and said a firm NO to Yucca Mountain. Even many Repubs here are oppposed to it.

[goodboy]

10. yup yup (nt)

[endthewar]

16. Disagree. He essentially agreed with McCain, making this a non-issue.

People focus on differences between the candidates. Obama shouldn't blast nuclear waste storage. There's more to lose than for him to gain that way.

[Nevernose]

20. 80% of Nevadans opposed to Yucca Mountain

Agreed that he didn't screw it up and answered better than McCain, but instead missed a shot at the extra-credit swing-state point.

[endthewar]

23. Outside of Nevada, most people don't care about Yucca Mountain.

I guarantee if you polled people in most other states where Yucca Mountain is located, they would have no clue.

[Youphemism]

11. Nuclear ships have been in the Navy for over 30 years. If they caused cancer, we'd have evidence...

As someone with a father who worked in a research lab and *did* contract cancer, I can tell you that the number of folks who worked there and later got cancer was abormally high. Those numbers are watched, and the government was determined to be at fault.

The same thing has not happened with nuclear vessels. They're impressively safe.

However, the number of people on nuclear vessels and the power they require is spit in the ocean compared to the power needs of the country. The issues on a vessel of delivering the power to where it's needed are non-existent. Navy vessels are mobile, well-protected from terrorists, and not permanently parked near large communities.

So there's limited value in making that comparison.

[endthewar]

25. I don't think that they cause cancer, but your logic is absurd.

As someone who actually DOES bio research, your logic doesn't make sense. Lack of evidence of something is not proof that it doesn't exist. By your logic, aliens don't exist since we don't have evidence of them and have spent more than 30 years looking for evidence of them. A safer argument is that no proof exists that nuclear subs cause cancer.

Too many points to make, so I'll just choose one. Do you know how they do cancer studies in animals? They have to give very large doses of carcinogenic substances. Why? Because cancer rates are very low even when a substance is considered carcinogenic. So what researchers do is give a large dose of the substance to make sure that cancer is caused, and then assume a dose-response relationship to determine if low levels of the substance would cause cancer.

[Youphemism]

26. While I don't like to disagree with an "expert," I think you're both rude and wrong...

By that reasoning, we discovered that coal miners get Black Lung by complete accident, not by studying people who spend time in coal mines as opposed to any other place on Earth.

As a "bio researcher," you surely know that you study groups exposed to a certain health risk and compare them to "control" groups who weren't exposed to that same risk but were largely similar in every other respect.

We've done that with people who work on nuclear accellerators, doctors who work with radiation therapy, military personnel exposed to depleted uranium, and people in many other high risk vocations. Similar comparisons were used to determine that asbestos was dangerous.

Those tests with rats you mention can determine whether a material is dangerous to organisms similar to humans. But since people -- with some exceptions -- aren't rats, the only way we've been able to tell what the threshhold for dangerous exposure is to take statistical samplings of people exposed and see whether they exceed the norm for people who weren't exposed.

If cancer rates were higher among people on naval vessels, we would have found that out in the decades we've been using them -- rats be damned.

Statistical sampling is the way high risk professions are identified. No rats are involved in that process. If anything, it's the early testing on animals that led the government to set exposure limits too high at first. Statistical observation of people exposed is what led us to lower those exposure limits since the 60s.

[endthewar]

27. Well, your logic was absurd

Lack of proof is NOT proof that something has been disproven. Statistical analysis determines if two groups that you're comparing are different, but it doesn't assert that they are the same. It's okay, a lot of people make that mistake. :rofl: I would talk about p-values and t-tests (basic statistics), but don't want to confuse you. Statistical analysis is used to analyze differences between groups, not similarities. If your control group has the same cancer incidence levels as your other group, you can't conclude that whatever you're studying isn't carcinogenic. You can state that no link was found, but that doesn't mean that a link isn't there. Again, you're continuing this false argument with "we would have found that out in the decades we've been using them." Please stop that. I'm not sure if you understand why this logic is wrong or if you're just trying to save face or something.

Oh, and stop being such a drama queen.

[Youphemism]

29. Tell ya what...

I'll leave our posts as they are and let people decide for themselves.

I'm betting your pedantic attempts to talk down to me using poor grammar (try studying the use of "if" versus "whether") won't fool many folks.

[endthewar]

31. Thanks :-)

To remix an old saying, if you're gonna do the time, you might as well do the crime. :rofl: On that note, here's some rude for ya:

[Cirque du So-What]

12. It's doubtful that McCain got any exposure to radiation aboard a naval vessel

The engineering controls in place aboard nuclear-powered ships and submarines are very effective in shielding non-nuclear spaces from radiation. They're so good - and McCain knows this - that he was being disingenuous in even mentioning nuke vessels. Why didn't he mention the Davis-Besse plant and the near collapse of the reactor vessel head or the near-meltdown at Three Mile Island? It's deregulation and lax oversight that make these things possible, and McCain has a piss-poor record when it comes to enforcing rules that cause corporations any monetary grief whatsoever.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

17. I always thought McCain's skin cancer was a result of

living in a sunny climate like Arizona.

[The Shadow]

21. Good Point About Besse Davis

WTF were they thinking? I'll tell you what they were thinking....money! I received the NRC briefing on that incident and it was scary, very scary. It was a pure stroke of luck that the problem was found during shutdown, because if it had not been found it would have been a catastrophic failure. Again it was all about money and getting the reactor back on the grid instead of careful analysis of what was going on. Without getting technical here, one of the indicators that was ignored by the engineering staff there was that radiation levels were increasing in the facility to the point where it was alarming friskers (detectors, instruments, etc.) so instead of recognizing an issue they moved the friskers farther away so they wouldn't alarm.

What made matters worse was the arrogant responses to the NRC from other operators of similar reactors, who, when asked by the NRC to inspect for similar issues with their reactor plants basically told the NRC to stick their concern up their ass. This information (communications between the NRC and other operators) is available on the NRC website if you search in the right areas for it.

[The Shadow]

15. Even the Navy Recognizes A Small Risk

associated with exposure to ionizing radiation. While the word "safe" is true (at least in regards to our nuclear navy) it is also a relative term. But, and I emphasize the word But, the difference with a nuclear reactor in the hands of our navy is that they will not operate one if all conditions are not acceptable, whereas, a reactor in the hands of the private sector for power generation is at the whims of the operators. If you don't believe what I am saying if you research the Nuclear Regulatory commissions own web site, you will see there is some reason for concern with power for profit operations.


Note: I have spent my entire career working in the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program and am aware of many of the drawbacks of private reactor operations. BTW, the navy's program is one of the most successful and safest nuclear programs ever implemented.....but even they recognize a risk.

[Cirque du So-What]

22. Nowhere close to a full career in proximity to nuclear reactors

but I lived aboard a nuclear submarine for a total of about ten months when I was on active duty. My film badges always came back registering less exposure to radiation than if I had been at the earth's surface, where I would have been more exposed to cosmic rays.

[ThoughtCriminal]

24. Most of the ships McCain served on were conventional power

A quick check a wiki and the only thing that I can find is that he might have been on the Enterprise for a short time in the Caribbean while training on A-4's.

[spoony]

28. Yes, radiation from the fucking SUN

[nadinbrzezinski]

30. Actually Navy Nuclear reactors are VERY SAFE

thanks to Admiral Rickover's program....

his skin cancer is from sun exposure