Thank You Brawm and Co.
I just want to express my deepest gratitude to all of the members of BRAWM. Your kind words and helpful advice on how to understand and interpret the numbers here have brought MUCH needed sanity to our household. When this started my girlfriend and I had just found out we were expecting and all of the joy that normally would accompany such news was completely shadowed by my fears and the paranoia this meltdown has generated. You've been a light in the darkness and helped us maintain our sanity through what was already an overwhelming experience. Using the information provided by posters and posts from the BRAWM team responding to VERY PERSONAL inquiries regarding their diet, we have been able to make sensible and healthy choices concerning foodstuff. To all the kind posters on here (Rick Bill Jen and Angus...and any Anons) that have offered kind advice, fellowship and comforting words...THANK YOU! A million times over...thank you. Godspeed Friends! DanR
Thanks to the BRAWM Team
I wanted to once again express my deep appreciation and gratitude
for all the extra hours you've worked and sacrificed to provide the public this huge community service. For science, the baseline you have created will invaluable to future research. The BRAWM team are our heros.
Thank you once again Berkeley
Thank You for once again providing test results, as in 1971 with the event Baneberry: http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/6308958-kjIBKd/6308958.pdf
Hey Rick! I noticed you
Hey Rick! I noticed you mentioned we should start a thread for expressing our gratitude...here ya go...I was a little bit ahead of you! My thanks to you as well for your articulate, informative, and often entertaining posts! You express so well what alot of us here are going through, I don't think anyone could deny you are a top notch ambassador for the rest of us "regulars"!
BRAWM excellence
The BRAWM team has my profound gratitude for providing critically relevant information on radioactive contamination of the west coast. I check your site daily and use your radionuclide measurements to determine how to minimize exposure to my young children. I have spent countless hours searching for relevant, actionable data on this disaster, and on the entire world-wide web your data is the most valuable. Your work is deeply meaningful. Thank you.
Congrats DanR!! And I second
Congrats DanR!! And I second the immense gratitude to the BRAWM team. Truly top-notch job you all are doing. Especially impressive is your patience with those of us who aren't educated in the area of "all things radiation" and how you all pitch in to explain things until we tell you it makes some sort of sense. By the way, the team is getting better and better at these explanations, keep it up! DanR's right, BRAWM is a light in the (factual/media) darkness of this whole stupid thing!
DanR- I second your thanks
DanR-
I second your thanks to the BRAWN team.
I have young kids, and this has been very tough on me psychologically. It has caused nasty fights with my wife, who thinks I am nuttier than usual due to the way this accident has weirded me out. Without BRAWNs work, I seriously think I would be gone round the bend certifiably insane.
One thing gives me pause - here are some scientists with enough to do before this mess started, jobs and families etc, who are doing this for the sake of the public and the sake of science. No doubt, there has been personal expense involved (meals w/family missed, days off spent working on this, hell maybe even $). But our gov't, who has spends endless $$$ on dubious garbage, is too busy to do ANY food chain testing other than QUARTERLY milk samples.
Again, cheers to the team. I appreciate it very much.
BC...I COMPLETELY
BC...I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND. I think I reached a major turning point when I acknowleged my girlfriends assurances that I was a hypochondriac... :)
I too find myself pretty dissapointed with the way this whole event has transpired and the EPA's response. I couldn't believe the news article that broke regarding how so many of their RAD monitors were down when this first occured. I think this has alot to do with the consequences of complacency...it's easy to sit back and tell yourself that the mythical "they" are sitting in a control room somewhere 24 hours a day building contingency plans and waiting to respond to any and all disasters. Maybe from now on it should be taken into consideration that perhaps the folks we elect to run the world aren't going to have all the right answers and will not always be looking out for the people's best interests (Not inviting a conspiracy theory, I've heard them all). Power corrupts and things fall between the cracks. It couldn't hurt to have more folks watching the watchers. I know as a voter I'm going to be looking for the candidate that is aware of these kinds of issues...corporate responsibility, alternative energy or SAFER nuclear energy, disaster prep and response, misuse of federal funding.
Dear DanR, congratulations
Dear DanR, congratulations on your growing family, and thank you for the kind words and for your contributions to the forum!
As we here in BRAWM see it, we have only been doing our duty to make these measurements and educate the public about radiation from the fallout. It is messages like yours, DanR, that help us to know that some folks out there understand and are comforted. My best wishes to you and your girlfriend and your child!
Though we here in the States have nothing to worry about, let us all remember to keep those in Japan who have been affected by the earthquake, tsunami, and radiation in our thoughts and prayers.
Mark [BRAWM Team Member]
Thank you Mark! I'm touched
Thank you Mark! I'm touched by your well wishes. I catch myself often forgetting what the folks of Japan are going through. Can you imagine your entire world turning upside down? Whole towns and swaths of land destroyed for years to come...the loss of not just one member but in some cases whole families...It's heartbreaking to think of so much lost.
A week or so after the tsunami CNN ran a story about group of young musicians in Tokyo who were performing on the street corner and accepting donations to help the relief effort...they stated that they were there to do something positive and weren't going to let the fear and anxiety of Fukushima stop them from doing something they enjoyed with people they cared about.
Thank you, BRAWM team, Mark
Thank you, BRAWM team, Mark et al, for all the time and effort you have put into this--and hopefully will continue to do so! I can only second all the positive, grateful comments that have already been made about your work--and the countless hours of extra time you are putting in, not only measuring data and refining your processes, but also patiently communicating and explaining your results to disconcerted lay people, some with "rational paranoia" (I like the term coined by Rick). It is so important in highly impactful events with global health implications like this to focus on the science, collect, analyze, monitor and communicate reliable data that provides the basis for appropriate decision-making and actions--like you are doing. The lack thereof has the potential to create huge amounts of distrust and anxiety--was we are experiencing with many people distrusting or being disillusioned with media and government monitoring/reporting. Please continue your good work and keep this forum going, as Fukushima is not going away, and long-term monitoring data will be needed to learn from this disaster. Thank you again!