statistical significance, effects are expected to be "minimal" over a long period
of time, and exposures are referred to as “sublethal” rather than near lethal.
It
is to the credit of the reports that at least the later data disproved most of
these minimizing statements, even though the language tends to indicate a
conservative, minimizing approach to findings.
mere game of semantics.
The Committee,
Some people may see this as a
however, would prefer to say that it is
not particularly concerned with the choice of words themselves and their
connotations, but rather the psychological or scientific "set" of mind which they
imply.
The Committee is of the impression that there are two possible reasons
for this tendency, which are discussed below.
J
Ld
ue df
The AEC Report, AEC-Brookhaven Relationship
As mentioned before, the AEC has tended to understate events or facts in
order to be reassuring.
No doubt this is partly due to the habit of the news
media seizing upon the outstanding or interesting aspect of an event.
"newsworthy" events are usually negative in nature because
deel
LL
Lt
interested in what is going well but what has gone wrong.
Most
most people are not
The Bravo event occurred
at a time when the public at large was anxious over the development of nuclear
weapons and their psychological and real advantages in the post World War II
“cold war.“
The event of March 1, 1954, and the later furor it caused in Japan
most certainly had its reverberations in the United States.
Whether it is
It is also easy to see why early reports of the conditions of the Marshallese also
tended to "minimize" the effects of fallout.
Led
One has only to note that the first
major report dealing with the event was published by the Atomic Energy Commission.
This report set the tone followed in later reports.
roe)
dened
Ld
—J
justified or not, it is easy to see why the AEC would want to be "reassuring."
143