Broadening the scope of a journal to help its readers understand related topics is a laudable goal, and radiocarbon studies of the carbon cycle should certainly interest readers of this journal. But Health Physics editors dropped the ball here. They should have included a qualified reviewer from the radiocarbon or atmospheric science community. They clearly did not because any reviewer with previous knowledge of atmospheric 14 C would have found the fatal errors cited below. An extensive peer-reviewed literature exists on studying the carbon cycle with 14 C, but next to none of it is cited by the authors. The average Health Physics reader will therefore not have the tools to critically evaluate the conclusions of the paper. We will let readers of this letter decide if Skrable et al.'s conclusions should be described as "controversial" or just plain wrong. Unfortunately, unless withdrawn this paper now becomes part of the peer-reviewed literature. That is not something Health Physics should be proud of.One would expect an article promising new insights into a critical current issue would at least start with the best data available. But this paper builds its case on inaccurate data, some of which it simply invents. Skrable et al.'s "educated guess" of 16.33 dpm (gC) −1 for the specific activity of 14 C in the 1750 atmosphere is not bad for a guess, but it is 20% too high. It corresponds to a Δ 14 C of 200 ‰ (parts per thousand, see below). Except during the era of atmospheric nuclear testing, such a value has not been seen for over 10,000 years (Cheng et al. 2018). A 20% specific activity error in 14 C converts to a dating error of over 1,800 years. Carbon-14 ( 14 C) dating is much better than that because the atmosphere's specific activity during historical times is accurately known. It is meticulously calibrated from materials of known age such as tree rings. There was no need to guess its starting point in 1750 or its trajectory since. There was no needThe authors declare no conflicts of interest.