(page 1859)
- Rennert was asked and answered as follows:
77"D. Mr. A. Amorai: Tell me a minute, it will be correct in principle, I don't take it for you, I just want to say in a big way, in a big way that there is no such thing as a permissible threshold. There are regulations that are a constraint, but in principle there is no such thing as a permissible threshold of exposure to carcinogenic substances and contaminants. Is that correct? Why are you smiling at me? Not a good question?
The witness, Prof. Gad Rennert: Because the question is completely theoretical, right? The fact is that the whole world lives according to thresholds, on any subject and in any matter. My first job, by the way, is not mentioned here, it may once again be considered bragging, but when I was in Chapel Hill in North Carolina, I was in charge of setting the emissions thresholds of all the factories in the industry of the STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA, and we had working rules, if the substance is carcinogenic you put factor 100 on it, and if the substance is only mutagenic you put factor 10 on it. There were very clear rules.
Adv. Mr. A. Amorai: But my question...
The Honorable Judge D. Chasdai: Shhh, don't interrupt.
The witness, Prof. Gad Rennert: And we had to go through every material that was emitted, every substance, and there were hundreds of them in such numbers, and every factory had to impose the thresholds stemming from its products. This is how countries operateThis is how there is someone in the State of Israel whose expertise and authority is to set thresholds, and on the basis of these thresholds we are destined to operate. I dealt a lot with radiation in Chernobyl. Again, there is a threshold of 40 Ram above which there is a risk of cancer and the question is whether the people who received 30 Ram were at risk or were not at risk. Someone determined that the cut was 40. The same thing, I determined that mammography is done from the age of 50, is it correct to do it from 48 or 52? Yes, it may be, but a policy is determined by numbers, in every subject and in every field, and therefore it is likely that there will be an emission threshold for any substance that represents the danger of the substance.