a261  1600  29 Jul 80
BC-News to Use,490
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID
Associated Press Writer
    WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal housing officials are pondering the
problems of housing ventilation and whether they should make any
changes in their rules.
    The discussion originated in the Department of Housing and Urban
Development, where experts have developed concern over indoor air
quality because increased insulation to save energy is reducing the
amount of air moving into and out of homes.
    Presently, ventilation rules are set b a variety of federal, state
and private organization codes, which can cause confusion, officials
noted.
    For example, current federal rules for multifamily dwellings require
doors and windows to equal at least 5 percent of floor space when
natural ventilation is used.
    However, if there is to be mechanical ventilation, such as in
kitchens and bathrooms, the code of the American Society of Heating,
Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers prescribes two air
changes an hour.
    The department is looking for comments and suggestions on a variety
of questions on this topic and interested persons can write, until
Sept. 23, to the Rules Docket Clerk, Office of the General Counsel,
Room 5218, Department of Housing and Urban Development, 451 Seventh
St. SW, Washington, D.C., 20410. Refer to Docket No. R-80-840.
    Some of the questions being discussed include:
    - Should federal minimum property standards set specific ventilation
requirements or merely refer to state codes?
    - Should ductless air circulating and treatment devices be allowed
instead of mechanical bathroom ventilation? If so, should this include
all bathrooms or only those that do not have moisture generating
fixtures such as showers?
    - Should mechanical ventilation of living areas be permitted in
place of natural ventilation and, if so, should the rate of air change
be 5 cubic feet per minute per occupant, 7-to-10 cubic feet per
minute per occupant or 10 cubic feet per minute per room, regardless
of the number of occupants?
    ---
    NOW THE GOOD NEWS - The Veterans Administration has reduced the
maximum allowed interest rate on loans for mobile homes.
    The change was announced Monday, but is retroactive to July 21.
    Declining interest rates allow the change to be made, the VA said,
and the lower rates should assist veterans in buying mobile homes by
lowering the monthly loan payments for principal and interest.
    Under the new rule the maximum interest rate for VA guaranteed loans
to buy mobile home lots or to buy both a mobile home and lot is 14
percent. Loans for the purchase of mobile home only will have a top
limit of 14 1/2 percent.
    The top rate for mobile homes had been 16 percent and for lots 15 1/2
percent.
    ---
    A SAFETY TIP - Here's a driving safety tip from the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration:
    Automobile brakes can be a life saver when they are operating
properly. Check to be sure the master brake cylinder is filled to the
proper level with clean, approved fluid.
    
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n517  2355  15 Aug 80
 
BC-BEIR-3takes-08-16
    
     By Mary Knudson
     (c) 1980 The Baltimore Sun (Field News Service)
     A very few people in the nation are responsible for deciding how
much radiation the rest of us will be allowed to be exposed to.
     Those who decide are government regulators. They, in turn, look to
the nation's leading scientists in the fields of radiation and the
environment to establish the risks posed by specific levels of
radiation.
     Using the risks calculated by these scientists as their guide, the
regulators determine how much radium can go into your drinking water
and how much exposure should be allowed for workers with radioactive
chemicals.
    The federal Environmental Protection Agency, under the Clean Air
Act, is expected to soon set regulations on radioactive industrial
emissions. These decisions, as well as possible revisions of
radiation levels for worker exposure and drinking water, await the
release of the latest risk estimates from a scientific document known
as the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) report. Uses
of medical and dental X-rays and other radioactive treatments also
are influenced by BEIR risk estimates.
     But the BEIR report has had an unusually prolonged birth. One year
ago it made an appearance in something of a public breech birth, and,
in an unusual act, was promptly slapped back into the womb by the
president of the National Academy of Sciences. Last week, a rewrite
committee produced a born-again version of the BEIR report, a
compromise of the 1979 version and its dissenting viewpoint.
     This arrival of what is considered as scientific truth can be
critically questioned. The report that appeared a year ago stated one
set of risks, the rewritten report, another. What is to be believed?
     Just how much do the nation's most highly regarded specialists know
about low-level radiation? How reliable are other scientific reports
produced through the academy or reported in well-respected scientific
journals? How much of science is indisputable fact and how much is
rhetorical debate used to win votes?
     The following description of the BEIR report's evolution is not
just an interesting story about a quarrel among high-ranking
scientists. It is a lesson in how our top scientists set rules the
rest of us are supposed to understand, then live by.
     X X X
     It was considered a major press conference, and the turnout of news
media representatives in Washington one year ago was large. It wasn't
long after the Three Mile Island controversy. A committee of the
nation's most respected radiation specialists was issuing its
long-awaited report on low-level radiation risks.
     Dr. Edward P. Radford, chairman of the National Academy of Sciences
Advisory Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation
(BEIR), gave the committee's report.
     Then Dr. Harald H. Rossi, a committee member, countered Radford's
report with a minority report lowering the risk estimate
considerably. What's more, Rossi said, his minority report had
growing support from committee members.
     The two scientists' disagreement stemmed from methods used to
arrive at ''low-level'' risk. Radford used something called a linear
approach, extrapolating damage caused by radiation from high doses
down to lower doses. Rossi insisted on a quadratic method, which says
a cell reacts to the square of the dose of radiation that it absorbs.
     As reporters tried to draw out the extent of the differences. Dr.
Philip Handler, president of the National Academy of Sciences,
listened in the back of the auditorium with growing dismay. Then came
his breaking point: Radford took the microphone and publicly
challenged Rossi to a ''debate'' on the issue.
     Handler recalled: ''I was so shocked that I got up and walked along
the side and walked up to the front and stared at them. I listened to
the chairman issue a challenge and I was aghast. Not because I have
any reluctance to display controversy in public, but because they had
had all this time to thrash it out in the committee room. (The report
was two years in the making). And I was appalled that there they
were... It was quite unusual.''
     Handler talked extensively with this reporter about the BEIR affair
in an interview at his summer home in Woods Hole, Mass., last August.
He said that by then, three months after the press conference, ''what
that day was called the minority view was really the majority view,
if you count noses.''
     The controversy displayed at the press conference ''persuaded me
that we didn't have a report,'' Handler said.
     MORE
    
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