Before it's Too Late

I was not invited to write a foreword for this book. Dr. Cohen, knowing my busy schedule, would have considered such a request to be an imposition. I volunteered to do so in part to acknowledge my gratitude to him for having been a constant source of reference materials as I have turned my attention increasingly to informing both lay and scientific audiences concerning the biologic effects of low-level ionizing radiation. My primary reason for vol unteering, however, is to point to the importance of such a book for public education at a time when the media, in collaboration with a variety of activist groups, have developed among the people an almost phobic fear of radiation at any level. I take issue with the words of another Nobel laureate, George Wald, who states regularly "Every dose is an overdose. '" This philosophy has re sulted in women refusing mammography for the detection of breast cancer even though this methodology is the most sensitive for detection of such cancers in the early, curable stage, and even though, at present, breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths among women. It has led a Westchester County, New York legislator to state proudly in the New York Times that he v vi I FOREWORD had introduced legislation that would bar all radioactivity from the county's roads.