[NukeNet] Some Historical Dr. Gofman: John W. Gofman (1918-2007)

[Bill Smirnow]

http://www.hss.energy.gov/HealthSafety/ohre/roadmap/histories/0457/0457toc.html



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Ewall" <catalyst at actionpa.org>
To: <nukenet at energyjustice.net>
Sent: Sunday, August 26, 2007 12:52 AM
Subject: [NukeNet] John W. Gofman (1918-2007)


> NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet at energyjustice.net)
>
>
> New York Times
> August 26, 2007
>
> John W. Gofman, 88, Scientist and Advocate for Nuclear Safety, Dies
> By JEREMY PEARCE
>
> Dr. John W. Gofman, a nuclear chemist and doctor who in the 1960s
> heightened public concerns about exposure to low-level radiation and
> became a leading voice against commercial nuclear power, died on Aug.
> 15 at his home in San Francisco. He was 88.
>
> The cause was heart failure, his family said.
>
> In 1964, while he was director of the biomedical research division at
> Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, Dr. Gofman
> helped start a national inquiry into the safety of atomic power. At a
> symposium for nuclear scientists and engineers, he raised questions
> about a lack of data on low-level radiation and also proposed a
> wide-ranging study of exposure in medicine and the workplace, from
> fallout and other sources.
>
> With a colleague at Livermore, Dr. Arthur R. Tamplin, Dr. Gofman then
> looked at health studies of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
> as well as other epidemiological studies, and conducted his own
> research on radiation's influences on human chromosomes. In 1969, the
> two scientists suggested that federal safety guidelines for low-level
> exposures be reduced by 90 percent.
>
> The findings were contested by the Atomic Energy Commission, and the
> furor made Dr. Gofman a reluctant figurehead of the antinuclear
> movement. In 1970, he testified in favor of a legislative bill to ban
> commercial nuclear reactors in New York City and told the City
> Council that a reactor in urban environs would be "equal in the
> opposite direction to all the medical advances put together in the
> last 25 years."
>
> Both he and Dr. Tamplin left Livermore in the 1970s, and Dr. Gofman
> went on to become an expert witness in radiation-exposure lawsuits
> and help found an advocacy group, the Committee for Nuclear
> Responsibility, based in San Francisco. In an unsuccessful project,
> he and others called for a five-year federal moratorium on new
> nuclear power stations, citing problems in the safe storage of
> radioactive waste. Yet, for all his efforts as a nuclear gadfly, he
> did not oppose the building of nuclear missiles.
>
> "Because we live in a dangerous world," he said in 1993, "I think the
> only thing you have is the deterrence value" of such weaponry.
>
> Dr. Gofman's appearance in the nuclear debate surprised some
> colleagues, since a thrust of his earlier research had been in
> cardiology. In the late 1940s and '50s, he and his collaborators
> investigated the body's lipoproteins, which contain both proteins and
> fats, and their circulation within the bloodstream. The researchers
> described low-density and high-density lipoproteins and their roles
> in metabolic disorders and coronary disease.
>
> In his earliest work, while still a graduate student at the
> University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Gofman studied nuclear
> isotopes and helped to describe several discoveries, including
> protactinium-232, uranium-232, protactinium-233 and uranium-233. He
> also helped to work out the fissionability of uranium-233.
>
> John William Gofman was born in Cleveland. He graduated from Oberlin
> College, and received a doctorate in nuclear and physical chemistry
> from Berkeley in 1943. Dr. Gofman went on to earn a medical degree
> from the University of California, San Francisco, in 1946.
>
> He joined Berkeley in 1947 and retired as professor emeritus of
> molecular and cell biology in 1973.
>
> With Egan O'Connor, he wrote a book, "X-Rays: Health Effects of
> Common Exams" (1986). He also wrote "Radiation-Induced Cancer from
> Low-Dose Exposure: An Independent Analysis" (1990).
>
> Dr. Gofman's wife, Dr. Helen Fahl Gofman, a pediatrician, died in 2004.
>
> He is survived by a son, Dr. John D. Gofman, an ophthalmologist, of
> Bellevue, Wash.
>
> ------
>
> As a tribute to him, would anyone like to update his Wikipedia entry
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gofman), which currently is only a
> paltry three sentences?
>
> Mike Ewall
> Energy Justice Network
> 215-743-4884
> catalyst at actionpa.org
> http://www.energyjustice.net
>
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
> Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
> Change your settings or access the archives at:
> http://mail.energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net
>
>