Asbestos, radiation, Japan and Ann Coulter

Yeah: why don’t they just throw asbestos on the reactor?

One day we’re gonna find out that not only is asbestos perfectly safe — maybe even good for you — but we’ll all agree that it could have saved at least thousand people in a single day.

PLUS — Ann Coulter writes:

As the New York Times science section reported in 2001, an increasing number of scientists believe that at some level – much higher than the minimums set by the U.S. government – radiation is good for you. “They theorize,” the Times said, that “these doses protect against cancer by activating cells’ natural defense mechanisms.” (…)

Although it is hardly a settled scientific fact that excess radiation is a health benefit, there’s certainly evidence that it decreases the risk of some cancers – and there are plenty of scientists willing to say so. But Jenny McCarthy’s vaccine theories get more press than Harvard physics professors’ studies on the potential benefits of radiation. (And they say conservatives are anti-science!)

I guess good radiation stories are not as exciting as news anchors warning of mutant humans and scary nuclear power plants – news anchors who, by the way, have injected small amounts of poison into their foreheads to stave off wrinkles. Which is to say: The general theory that small amounts of toxins can be healthy is widely accepted –except in the case of radiation.

Every day Americans pop multivitamins containing trace amount of zinc, magnesium, selenium, copper, manganese, chromium, molybdenum, nickel, boron – all poisons.