Memo from | Lo: Dr.
JOSHUA LEDERBERG

JUN S = 1979

Bresler

You should, I think, ask for a restatement
of the calculated human exposure to additional
radioactivity in terms of total man-rads per
year, integrated over the entire exposed popu-
lation.

I doubt if you will get a number as high as

0.1 millirems per capita. If you accept my
estimate of health costs of $100 per man-rad,
this will amount to a "tax" of about le per
capita, and I do believe this is a fair way to
judge the impact. It also gives you the leeway
to accuse me of a 10- or 100~-fold underestimate
of the burden; but the implication of the latter
is already to say that we attribute a health
cost of $1000 per capita per year to natural
radiation, and more than $500 to diagnostic
X-rays -- which would more than outweigh our
total expenditure on health care.

On these arguments, attributing a social cost

of $1 per capita per year to a 0.1 mmkixem milli-
rem exposure must be regarded as an inflated
upper limit (according to my own view by about

2 orders of magnitude.)

Sincerely,