George Jackson was a pioneer in the field of Nuclear Medicine. By 1979, he had become Head of the Department of Nuclear Medicine at Harrisburg Hospital with an internationally-known practice, specializing in thyroid disease.
Until “the scare” was over, my father never acquiesced to the President and Governor.
When TMI suffered its meltdown, our father (accompanied by our mother) was attending a medical conference on the West Coast. Understanding the severity of the incident and the growing concern of and for the citizens of south central PA, President Carter and Governor Thornburgh tried to contact our father. As this area’s expert, they were intent on having him go on television and radio to assure the people of this region that their health (especially their thyroid health) had not been placed at-risk by the events at the power plant.
When they finally did reach our father (I believe this was after he had returned to PA), he refused their wishes, citing that the information that he had gleaned from broadcast and print media was contradictory and inconclusive. Until “the scare” was over, my father never acquiesced to the President and Governor.
After many years of slipping away, our father died on December 27, 2016. It’s ironic that, several months after his passing, doctors at Hershey Medical Center released a statistical analysis that showed a correlation between the incident at TMI and an uptick in subsequent cases of radiation-based diseases including, I believe, a direct nexus to thyroid disease. Apparently our father was correct in denying the President’s and Governor’s wishes.