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IS CIVIL DEFENSE COST EFFECTIVE?
Senator Edward Kennedy, in response to a letter from DDP,
stated that he felt "fallout shelters were not a cost*effective means
of protecting the American public from a nuclear attack." In
general, lack of cost)effectiveness is frequently argued by opponents
of any and all defenses against nuclear attack.
Cost effectiveness is by its very nature a comparative
measure. The cost per life saved by various methods has been
compiled by Dr. Bernard Cohen, Professor of Physics at the University
of Pittsburgh:
ZZ Method
$/life saved
Immunizations (Indonesia) $
210
Improved sanitation (3rd world) 4,030
Cervical cancer screening 50,000
Breast cancer screening 160,000
Hypertension control 150,000
Kidney dialysis 400,000
Mobile ICUs in small towns 120,000
Improved traffic signs 31,000
Upgrade guard rails (highways) 101,000
High level radioactive waste:
strict precautions vs random
burial with simple precautions 220,000,000
Stricter safety standards for
nuclear reactors, compared with
prior standards $2,500,000,000
-Dr. Cohen's complete discussion on "Reducing the Hazards of Nuclear
Power - Insanity in Action" is available free from the USCEA, 1776 I
St. NW #400, Washington, DC 20006. Note: the reason for the high
cost of "regulatory ratcheting" by the NRC is the fact that peaceful
nuclear energy causes so few deaths to begin with.
Given the media attention now focused on cholesterol, it is
worth noting that the cost of saving one year of life with
cholestyramine treatment of hypercholesterolemia ranges from $36,000
to $1,000,000, depending on the risk group (AMA 258:2381). Compare
this with the cost of one year of food storage ($144/person) or a
space in a blast shelter ($200 or more) or an SDI program capable of
saving 50 million lives for $50 billion ($1000/life saved).
CD IN PIMA COUNTY-
Water Supply: "All primary city pumping stations have emergency
power, and there are sufficient portable generators, pumps, etc.
available to maintain water supplies and other emergency power
requirements. Fuel is not stockpiled"
Food Supply: "There is no emergency food storage."
Medical Equipment: "The packaged disaster hospital located in
Cochise County was allocated to us....[but] this entire commit-ment
was put on hold by the unexpected transfer of [DMAFB commanding
officers]." (Pima County Division of Emergency Services, personal
communication, emphasis added.)
CHERNOBYL AND SOVIET CD-
Many Western commentators were puzzled by the delay in the
evacuation of the population near Chernobyl. Actually,
recommendations of the International Commission on on Radiological
Protection (ICRP) were followed. These call for evacuation if the
integrated dose commitment for individuals is expected to reach 75
Rem. On April 26, radiation levels in Pripyat were 10 mRem/hr, not
sufficient to predict the need for evacuation. The level rose to
1000 mRem/hr, and evacua-tion commenced on April 27. The average
dose commitment received by residents of Pripyat was 3 Rem, less than
the annual exposure permitted for a radiation worker. Persons living
between 3 and 15 km from the plant received an average of 43 Rem, a
dose predicted to increase the risk of dying of cancer from a normal
of about 16.7% to about 17.2%. Those outside the evacuation zone
received about 0.5 Rem, the increased dose accrued by living in
Denver for 10 years instead of Washington, DC. The total worldwide
health effects will probably be less than the effect of one year's
combustion of fossil fuels in the USSR (R. Wilson, Science
236:1636)1640).
In an interview on Komsomolskaya Pravda, May, 1987, Vladimir
Leonidovich Govorov, chief of USSR civil defense, commented that
"scientific ... progress has fantastically increased the potential
for producing goods.... Unfortunate,ly, the scale on which people are
affected by ac,cidents...has increased as a result. The Indian city
of Bhopal, our Cher-nobyl, show the need to further improve civil
defense."
Govorov stated further that while nuclear war would be a
"great misfortune," population protection will "without doubt
con,siderably reduce the number of human lives lost."
SOVIET COST EFFECTIVENESS
Recently, Soviet industry delivered its newborn missile:
precise and mobile intercontinental SS-24. A few months earlier, the
most powerful booster in the world Energia was successfully employed.
Evidently, the Soviet military space babies are in good health....
But what about human babies? In a recent interview in
Pravda, one medical official admitted that the situation is worse
than horrible. The equipment of Soviet obstetricians consists mostly
of a measuring tape, stethoscope, and forceps. Delivery wards
should have at least 60 types of medical instruments. Soviet
industry makes only six types and no money is available to import the
remaining 54.
There are no disposable items at all. The linens ... in many
cases are hand washed....Infection is always present, and thousands
of healthy women and babies die. To hide these facts, the Ministry
of Health plays with statistics. According to international rules, a
newborn is counted if his weight is more than 500 grams, but the
Soviets start counting at 1000 grams and even that cannot improve the
picture: Mortality of Soviet babies is the same as in Uganda.
Yuri Tuvim