Bernard Cohen

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Bernard Leonard Cohen is Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Pittsburgh. He has been a staunch opponent to the so called Linear no-threshold model (LNT) which postulates that there is no safe threshold for radiation exposure.

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[edit] No-threshold and Plutonium Toxicity debates

Cohen's debates in academic periodicals and published correspondence with R. William Field, Brian J. Smith (assistant professor of biostatistics, University of Iowa), Jerry Puskin (from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), Sarah Darby, and Sir Richard Doll and others regarding his radon-related ecologic studies are well known.[1][2]

Cohen has offered rewards of up to $10,000 if people could provide evidence that the inverse association he found between radon (county averages) and lung cancer (county averages) was due to some factor other than failure of the linear-no threshold theory. Puskin, Smith, Field and others have claimed that his findings are due in part to his inability to control for the inverse association between smoking and radon.[3][4]

When Ralph Nader described plutonium as "the most toxic substance known to mankind", Cohen, then a tenured professor, offered to consume on camera as much plutonium oxide as Nader could consume of caffeine,[5] the stimulant found in coffee and other beverages, which in its pure form has an oral (LD50) of 192 milligrams per kilogram in rats.[6]

[edit] Publications and awards

Cohen has written six books (including The Nuclear Energy Option (1990)[7], Heart of the Atom (1967), Concepts of Nuclear Physics (1970), Nuclear Science and Society (1974), and Before It's Too Late (1983)), about 135 research papers on basic nuclear physics, about 200 scientific papers on energy and environment (e.g. nuclear power, health effects of radiation, radioactive waste, risks in our Society), and about 60 articles in popular magazines such as National Review, Oui, Science Digest, Catholic Digest, and American Legion Magazine.

Cohen's received the American Physical Society Tom Bonner Prize (1981) for his nuclear physics research. He was also elected to Chairman of the A.P.S. Division of Nuclear Physics (1974-75).

For his research on energy and environment, Cohen received the Health Physics Society Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award, the American Nuclear Society Walter Zinn Award, Public Information Award, and Special Award. He was also elected to membership in National Academy of Engineering, and to Chairman of the American Nuclear Society Division of Environmental Sciences (1980-81).

[edit] References

  1. ^ Cohen's fallacy University of Iowa published correspondence.
  2. ^ Abstract from Response to Criticisms of Smith Et Al. Cohen, Bernard. Health Physics. 75(1):23-28, July 1998.
  3. ^ Abstract from Smoking as a confounder in ecologic correlations of cancer mortality rates with average county radon levels. Puskin, JL. Health Physics February 2004, Cohen, BL.The Puskin observation on smoking as a confounder in ecological correlations of cancer mortality rates with average county radon levels, Health Phys 86:203-204;2004 pp203-4.
  4. ^ A respectable end to radon debate needed Published email correspondence between Cohen and Vanderbilt University.
  5. ^ Bernard L. Cohen in Nuclear Engergy; Karl Otto Ott and Bernard I. Spinrad, eds. (New York: Plenum Press, 1985), pp. 355-365
  6. ^ Peters, Josef M. (1967). "Factors Affecting Caffeine Toxicity: A Review of the Literature". The Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and the Journal of New Drugs (7): 131-141 url = http://jcp.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/7/3/131. 
  7. ^ full text

[edit] External links