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∂AIL Editor:↓%2New York Times%1↓229 West 43d St.↓N.Y. 10036∞
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To the Editor:

	The %2Consumer Reports%1 attitude to microwave ovens
cited by Richard Severo on October 8 is an example of a common
unbalanced attitude towards the hazards of new technology as compared
to old.  Severo quotes Consumers Union,

	%2"In the absence of definitive research, however, we still don't
know whether any of the ovens can be judged entirely free of
radiation hazard,  Does anyone?"%1

	While %2Consumer
Reports%1 may have saved someone from injury if the ovens are not
"entirely free of radiation hazard", they should be asked to estimate
how many of the people they have dissuaded from using
microwave ovens have subsequently
died or had children die in conventional cooking accidents.

	They could begin by estimating what part of the
lesser sales of microwave ovens in the U.S. than in
Japan comes from their opposition and Ralph Nader's.
Next they could note from the %2Statistical Abstract
of the United States%1 that 6000 Americans died in 1978 in home fires,
half involving cooking or heating.  They could list
newspaper reports of children pulling pots off the stove,
igniting their clothing from open flames of gas ranges and being
burned by exploding kerosene cookers.  Conventional
cooking devices don't have interlocks to prevent access while flames
are present, don't have timers to shut them if the user forgets
and don't remain cold while cooking.

	They may still conclude that conventional
cooking is safer, but they will have done their duty to the consumer
by comparing the hypothetical
 hazards of the new with the known hazards of the old.

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