Radiophobia

Last updated
Health physics poster exhorting respect for--rather than fear of--radiation. (ORNL, 1947) Hppost5.jpg
Health physics poster exhorting respect for—rather than fear of—radiation. (ORNL, 1947)

Radiophobia is an irrational or excessive fear of ionizing radiation, leading to overestimating the health risks of radiation compared to other risks. It can impede rational decision-making and contribute to counter-productive behavior and policies. Radiophobia is primarily a social phenomenon as opposed to a purely psychological dynamic. The term is also used to describe the opposition to the use of nuclear technology (i.e. nuclear power) arising from concerns disproportionately greater than actual risks would merit.

Contents

Early use

The term was used in a paper entitled "Radio-phobia and radio-mania" presented by Dr Albert Soiland of Los Angeles in 1903. [1] In the 1920s, the term was used to describe people who were afraid of radio broadcasting and receiving technology. [2] [3] In 1931, radiophobia was referred to in The Salt Lake Tribune as a "fear of loudspeakers", [4] an affliction that Joan Crawford was reported as suffering. [5] The term "radiophobia" was also printed in Australian newspapers in the 1930s and 1940s, assuming a similar meaning. [6] The 1949 poem by Margarent Mercia Baker entitled "Radiophobia" laments the intrusion of advertising into radio broadcasts. [7] The term remained in use with its original association with radios and radio broadcasting during the 1940s [8] and 1950s. [9]

During the 1950s and 1960s, the Science Service associated the term with fear of gamma radiation and the medical use of x-rays. [10] [11] A Science Service article published in several American newspapers proposed that "radiophobia" could be attributed to the publication of information regarding the "genetic hazards" of exposure to ionising radiation by the National Academy of Sciences in 1956. [12]

In a newspaper column published in 1970, Dr Harold Pettit MD wrote:

"A healthy respect for the hazards of radiation is desirable. When atomic testing began in the early 1950s, these hazards were grossly exaggerated, producing a new psychological disorder which has been called "radiophobia" or "nuclear neurosis". [13]

Castle Bravo and its influence on public perception

On March 1, 1954, the operation Castle Bravo, testing a first-of-its-kind experimental thermonuclear Shrimp device, overshot its predicted TNT equivalent yield of 4–6 Mt and instead produced 15 Mt. This produced an unanticipated amount of Bikini snow or visible particles of nuclear fallout, which caught in its plume the Japanese fishing boat the Daigo Fukuryū Maru or Lucky Dragon outside the initially predicted ~5 Mt fallout area cordoned off for Castle Bravo. Approximately 2 weeks after the test and fallout exposure, the 23-member fishing crew began to fall ill with acute radiation sickness, largely brought on by beta burns caused by the direct contact their bare hands had scooping the Bikini snow into bags. Kuboyama Aikichi, the boat's chief radioman, died 7 months later, on September 23, 1954. [14] [15] It was later estimated that about a hundred fishing boats were contaminated to some degree by fallout from the test. Inhabitants of the Marshall Islands were also exposed to fallout, and a number of islands had to be evacuated. [15]

This incident, due to the era of secrecy around nuclear weapons, created widespread fear of uncontrolled and unpredictable nuclear weapons, and also of radioactively contaminated fish affecting the Japanese food supply. With the publication of Joseph Rotblat's findings that the contamination caused by the fallout from the Castle Bravo test was nearly a thousand times greater than that stated officially, outcry in Japan reached such a level that the incident was dubbed by some as "a second Hiroshima". [16] To prevent the subsequent strong anti-nuclear movement from turning into an anti-American movement, the Japanese and U.S. governments agreed on compensation of 2 million dollars for the contaminated fishery, with the surviving 22 crew men receiving about ¥2 million each [17] [18] ($5,556 in 1954, $63,000 in 2024). [19]

The surviving crew members, and their family, would later experience prejudice and discrimination, as local people thought that radiation was contagious. [17]

The Castle Bravo test and the new fears of radioactive fallout inspired a new direction in art and cinema. The Godzilla films, beginning with Ishirō Honda's landmark 1954 film Gojira, are strong metaphors for post-war radiophobia. The opening scene of Gojira echoes the story of the Daigo Fukuryū Maru, from the initial distant flash of light to survivors being found with radiation burns. Although he found the special effects unconvincing, Roger Ebert stated that the film was "an important one" and "properly decoded, was the Fahrenheit 9/11 of its time." [20]

A year after the Castle Bravo test, Akira Kurosawa examined one person's unreasoning terror of radiation and nuclear war in his 1955 film I Live in Fear . At the end of the film, the foundry worker who lives in fear has been declared incompetent by his family, but the possible partial validity of his fears has transferred over to his doctor.

Nevil Shute's 1957 novel On the Beach depicts a future just six years later, based on the premise that a nuclear war has released so much radioactive fallout that all life in the Northern Hemisphere has been killed. The novel is set in Australia, which, along with the rest of the Southern Hemisphere, awaits a similar and inevitable fate. Helen Caldicott describes reading the novel in adolescence as 'a formative event' in her becoming part of the anti-nuclear movement. [21]

Radiophobia and Chernobyl

In the former Soviet Union, many patients with negligible radioactive exposure after the Chernobyl disaster displayed extreme anxiety about low level radiation exposure; [22] [23] they developed many psychosomatic problems, with an increase in fatalistic alcoholism also being observed. As Japanese health and radiation specialist Shunichi Yamashita noted: [24]

We know from Chernobyl that the psychological consequences are enormous. Life expectancy of the evacuees dropped from 65 to 58 years—not [predominately] because of cancer, but because of depression, alcoholism and suicide. Relocation is not easy, the stress is very big. We must not only track those problems, but also treat them. Otherwise people will feel they are just guinea pigs in our research.

The term "radiation phobia syndrome" was introduced in 1987 [25] by L. A. Ilyin and O. A. Pavlovsky in their report "Radiological consequences of the Chernobyl accident in the Soviet Union and measures taken to mitigate their impact". [26]

The author of Chernobyl Poems Lyubov Sirota [27] wrote in her poem "Radiophobia":

Is this only—a fear of radiation?

Perhaps rather—a fear of wars?
Perhaps—the dread of betrayal,

Cowardice, stupidity, lawlessness?

The term has been criticized by Adolph Kharash, Science Director at the Moscow State University:

It treats the normal impulse to self-protection, natural to everything living, your moral suffering, your anguish and your concern about the fate of your children, relatives and friends, and your own physical suffering and sickness as a result of delirium, of pathological perversion. [28]

However, the psychological phobia of radiation in sufferers may not coincide with an actual life-threatening exposure to an individual or their children. Radiophobia refers only to a display of anxiety disproportionate to the actual quantity of radiation one is exposed to, with, in many cases, radiation exposure values equal to, or not much higher than, what individuals are naturally exposed to every day from background radiation. Anxiety following a response to an actual life-threatening level of exposure to radiation is not considered to be radiophobia, nor misplaced anxiety, but a normal, appropriate response.

Marvin Goldman is an American doctor who provided commentary to newspapers claiming that radiophobia had taken a larger toll than the fallout itself had, and that radiophobia was to blame. [29]

Chernobyl abortions

Following the accident, journalists mistrusted many medical professionals (such as the spokesman from the UK National Radiological Protection Board), and in turn encouraged the public to mistrust them. [30]

Throughout the European continent, in nations where abortion is legal, many requests for induced abortions, of otherwise normal pregnancies, were obtained out of fears of radiation from Chernobyl; including an excess number of abortions of healthy human fetuses in Denmark in the months following the accident. [31]

As the increase in radiation in Denmark was so low that almost no increased risk of birth defects was expected, the public debate and anxiety among the pregnant women and their husbands "caused" more fetal deaths in Denmark than the accident. This underlines the importance of public debate, the role of the mass media and of the way in which National Health authorities participate in this debate.

In Greece, following the accident there was panic and false rumors which led to many obstetricians initially thinking it prudent to interrupt otherwise wanted pregnancies and/or were unable to resist requests from worried pregnant mothers over fears of radiation; within a few weeks misconceptions within the medical profession were largely cleared up, although worries persisted in the general population. Although it was determined that the effective dose to Greeks would not exceed 1 mSv (0.1 rem), a dose much lower than that which could induce embryonic abnormalities or other non-stochastic effects, there was an observed 2500 excess of otherwise wanted pregnancies being terminated, probably out of fear in the mother of some kind of perceived radiation risk. [32]

A "slightly" above the expected number of induced abortions by request occurred in Italy, where, upon initial request, "a week of reflection" followed by a 2 to 3 week "health system" delay usually occur before the procedure. [33] [34]

Radiophobia and health effects

"My former colleague, William Clark, has likened the public’s frenzy over small environmental insults to the fear of witches in the later Middle Ages. Some million certified “witches” were executed because they could not prove that they had not caused harm to someone or something. In the same way, since one cannot prove that tiny amounts of radiation did not cause a particular leukemia—for that matter one cannot prove that they caused it either—those who wish to succumb to low-level phobia succumb. As a result nuclear energy […is] under siege. Not until the low–level controversy is resolved can we expect nuclear energy to be fully accepted."

— Alvin M. Weinberg [35]

The term "radiophobia" is also sometimes used in the arguments against proponents of the conservative LNT concept (Linear no-threshold response model for ionizing radiation) of radiation security proposed by the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) in 1949. The "no-threshold" position effectively assumes, from data extrapolated from the atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that even negligible doses of radiation increase one's risk of cancer linearly as the exposure increases from a value of 0 up to high dose rates. The LNT model therefore suggests that radiation exposure from naturally occurring background radiation may be harmful. [36] There is no biological evidence and weak statistical evidence that doses below 100 mSv have any biological effect. [37]

After the Fukushima disaster, the German news magazine Der Spiegel reported that Japanese residents were suffering from radiophobia. [24] British medical scientist Geraldine Thomas has also attributed suffering of the Japanese to radiophobia in interviews and formal presentations. [38] Four years after the event The New York Times reported that ″about 1,600 people died from the stress of the evacuation″. The forced evacuation of 154,000 people ″was not justified by the relatively moderate radiation levels″, but was ordered because ″the government basically panicked″. [39]

At the same time as part of the public fears radiation, some commercial products are also promoted on the basis of their radioactive content, such as "negative ion" bracelets or radon spas.

Radiophobia and industrial and healthcare use

Radiation, most commonly in the form of X-rays, is used frequently in society in order to produce positive outcomes. The primary uses of radiation in healthcare are in radiographic examination and procedures, and radiotherapy in the treatment of cancerous conditions. Radiophobia can be a fear which patients experience before and after either of these procedures; [40] it is therefore the responsibility of the healthcare professional at the time, often a Radiographer or Radiation Therapist, to reassure the patients about the stochastic and deterministic effects of radiation on human physiology. Advising patients and other irradiated persons of the various radiation protection measures that are enforced, including the use of lead-rubber aprons, dosimetry and Automatic Exposure Control (AEC) is a common method of informing and reassuring radiophobia sufferers.

Similarly, in industrial radiography, there is the possibility of persons experiencing radiophobia when radiophobia sufferers are near industrial radiographic equipment.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nuclear fallout</span> Residual radioactive material following a nuclear blast

Nuclear fallout is residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and the shock wave has passed. It commonly refers to the radioactive dust and ash created when a nuclear weapon explodes. The amount and spread of fallout is a product of the size of the weapon and the altitude at which it is detonated. Fallout may get entrained with the products of a pyrocumulus cloud and when combined with precipitation falls as black rain, which occurred within 30–40 minutes of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This radioactive dust, usually consisting of fission products mixed with bystanding atoms that are neutron-activated by exposure, is a form of radioactive contamination.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acute radiation syndrome</span> Health problems caused by high levels of ionizing radiation

Acute radiation syndrome (ARS), also known as radiation sickness or radiation poisoning, is a collection of health effects that are caused by being exposed to high amounts of ionizing radiation in a short period of time. Symptoms can start within an hour of exposure, and can last for several months. Early symptoms are usually nausea, vomiting and loss of appetite. In the following hours or weeks, initial symptoms may appear to improve, before the development of additional symptoms, after which either recovery or death follow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nuclear and radiation accidents and incidents</span> Severe disruptive events involving fissile or fusile materials

A nuclear and radiation accident is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "an event that has led to significant consequences to people, the environment or the facility." Examples include lethal effects to individuals, large radioactivity release to the environment, or a reactor core melt. The prime example of a "major nuclear accident" is one in which a reactor core is damaged and significant amounts of radioactive isotopes are released, such as in the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Radioactive contamination</span> Undesirable radioactive elements on surfaces or in gases, liquids, or solids

Radioactive contamination, also called radiological pollution, is the deposition of, or presence of radioactive substances on surfaces or within solids, liquids, or gases, where their presence is unintended or undesirable.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linear no-threshold model</span> Deprecated model predicting health effects of radiation

The linear no-threshold model (LNT) is a dose-response model used in radiation protection to estimate stochastic health effects such as radiation-induced cancer, genetic mutations and teratogenic effects on the human body due to exposure to ionizing radiation. The model assumes a linear relationship between dose and health effects, even for very low doses where biological effects are more difficult to observe. The LNT model implies that all exposure to ionizing radiation is harmful, regardless of how low the dose is, and that the effect is cumulative over lifetime.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iodine-131</span> Isotope of iodine

Iodine-131 is an important radioisotope of iodine discovered by Glenn Seaborg and John Livingood in 1938 at the University of California, Berkeley. It has a radioactive decay half-life of about eight days. It is associated with nuclear energy, medical diagnostic and treatment procedures, and natural gas production. It also plays a major role as a radioactive isotope present in nuclear fission products, and was a significant contributor to the health hazards from open-air atomic bomb testing in the 1950s, and from the Chernobyl disaster, as well as being a large fraction of the contamination hazard in the first weeks in the Fukushima nuclear crisis. This is because 131I is a major fission product of uranium and plutonium, comprising nearly 3% of the total products of fission. See fission product yield for a comparison with other radioactive fission products. 131I is also a major fission product of uranium-233, produced from thorium.

Downwinders were individuals and communities in the intermountain West between the Cascade and Rocky Mountain ranges primarily in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah but also in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho who were exposed to radioactive contamination or nuclear fallout from atmospheric or underground nuclear weapons testing, and nuclear accidents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chernobyl disaster</span> 1986 nuclear accident in the Soviet Union

The Chernobyl disaster began on 26 April 1986 with the explosion of the No. 4 reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant near the city of Pripyat in northern Ukraine, near the Belarus border in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two nuclear energy accidents rated at the maximum severity on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the other being the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. The response involved more than 500,000 personnel and cost an estimated 18 billion rubles. It remains the worst nuclear disaster in history, and the costliest disaster in human history, with an estimated cost of $700 billion USD.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hot particle</span> Nuclear risk to human health

A hot particle is a microscopic piece of radioactive material that can become lodged in living tissue and deliver a concentrated dose of radiation to a small area. A generally accepted theory proposes that hot particles within the body are vastly more dangerous than external emitters delivering the same dose of radiation in a diffused manner. Other researchers claim that there is little or no difference in risk between internal and external emitters, maintaining that individuals will likely continue to accumulate radiation dose from internal sources even after being removed from the original hazard and properly decontaminated, regardless of the relative danger from an internally sourced radiation dose compared to an equivalent externally sourced radiation dose.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Effects of the Chernobyl disaster</span> Assessment of Chernobyls impact on Earth since 1986

The Chernobyl disaster of 26 April 1986 triggered the release of radioactive contamination into the atmosphere in the form of both particulate and gaseous radioisotopes. As of 2024, it remains the world's largest known release of radioactivity into the natural environment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chernobyl liquidators</span> Civil and military force sent to deal with the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster

Chernobyl liquidators were the civil and military personnel who were called upon to deal with the consequences of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union on the site of the event. The liquidators are widely credited with limiting both the immediate and long-term damage from the disaster.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Strontium-90</span> Radioactive isotope of strontium

Strontium-90 is a radioactive isotope of strontium produced by nuclear fission, with a half-life of 28.8 years. It undergoes β− decay into yttrium-90, with a decay energy of 0.546 MeV. Strontium-90 has applications in medicine and industry and is an isotope of concern in fallout from nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons testing, and nuclear accidents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Environmental impact of nuclear power</span>

Nuclear power has various environmental impacts, both positive and negative, including the construction and operation of the plant, the nuclear fuel cycle, and the effects of nuclear accidents. Nuclear power plants do not burn fossil fuels and so do not directly emit carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide emitted during mining, enrichment, fabrication and transport of fuel is small when compared with the carbon dioxide emitted by fossil fuels of similar energy yield, however, these plants still produce other environmentally damaging wastes. Nuclear energy and renewable energy have reduced environmental costs by decreasing CO2 emissions resulting from energy consumption.

The effects of the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident are widely agreed to be very low by scientists in the relevant fields. The American Nuclear Society concluded that average local radiation exposure was equivalent to a chest X-ray and maximum local exposure equivalent to less than a year's background radiation. The U.S. BEIR report on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation states that "the collective dose equivalent resulting from the radioactivity released in the Three Mile Island accident was so low that the estimated number of excess cancer cases to be expected, if any were to occur, would be negligible and undetectable." A variety of epidemiology studies have concluded that the accident has had no observable long term health effects. One dissenting study is "a re-evaluation of cancer incidence near the Three Mile Island nuclear plant" by Dr Steven Wing of the University of North Carolina. In this study, Dr Wing and his colleagues argue that earlier findings had "logical and methodological problems" and conclude that "cancer incidence, specifically lung cancer and leukemia, increased following the TMI accident in areas estimated to have been in the pathway of radioactive plumes than in other areas." Other dissenting opinions can be found in the Radiation and Public Health Project, whose leader, Joseph Mangano, has questioned the safety of nuclear power since 1985.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deaths due to the Chernobyl disaster</span> The death toll of the 1986 Chernobyl incident

The Chernobyl disaster, considered the worst nuclear disaster in history, occurred on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, then part of the Soviet Union, now in Ukraine. From 1986 onward, the total death toll of the disaster has lacked consensus; as peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet and other sources have noted, it remains contested. There is consensus that a total of approximately 30 people died from immediate blast trauma and acute radiation syndrome (ARS) in the seconds to months after the disaster respectively, with 60 in total in the decades since, inclusive of later radiation induced cancer. However, there is considerable debate concerning the accurate number of projected deaths that have yet to occur due to the disaster's long-term health effects; long-term death estimates range from up to 4,000 for the most exposed people of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia, to 16,000 cases in total for all those exposed on the entire continent of Europe, with figures as high as 60,000 when including the relatively minor effects around the globe. Such numbers are based on the heavily contested linear no-threshold model.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Radiation effects from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster</span> Effects of radiation released from the Fukushima nuclear disaster

The radiation effects from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster are the observed and predicted effects as a result of the release of radioactive isotopes from the Fukushima Daiichii Nuclear Power Plant following the 2011 Tōhoku 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami. The release of radioactive isotopes from reactor containment vessels was a result of venting in order to reduce gaseous pressure, and the discharge of coolant water into the sea. This resulted in Japanese authorities implementing a 30-km exclusion zone around the power plant and the continued displacement of approximately 156,000 people as of early 2013. The number of evacuees has declined to 49,492 as of March 2018. Radioactive particles from the incident, including iodine-131 and caesium-134/137, have since been detected at atmospheric radionuclide sampling stations around the world, including in California and the Pacific Ocean.

Exposure to ionizing radiation is known to increase the future incidence of cancer, particularly leukemia. The mechanism by which this occurs is well understood, but quantitative models predicting the level of risk remain controversial. The most widely accepted model posits that the incidence of cancers due to ionizing radiation increases linearly with effective radiation dose at a rate of 5.5% per sievert; if correct, natural background radiation is the most hazardous source of radiation to general public health, followed by medical imaging as a close second. Additionally, the vast majority of non-invasive cancers are non-melanoma skin cancers caused by ultraviolet radiation. Non-ionizing radio frequency radiation from mobile phones, electric power transmission, and other similar sources have been investigated as a possible carcinogen by the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer, but to date, no evidence of this has been observed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fukushima nuclear accident casualties</span> Possible casualties and related deaths caused by the Fukushima nuclear disaster

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident genshiryoku hatsudensho jiko) was a series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns, and releases of radioactive materials at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, following the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011. It was the largest nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, and the radiation released exceeded official safety guidelines. Despite this, there were no deaths caused by acute radiation syndrome. Given the uncertain health effects of low-dose radiation, cancer deaths cannot be ruled out. However, studies by the World Health Organization and Tokyo University have shown that no discernible increase in the rate of cancer deaths is expected. Predicted future cancer deaths due to accumulated radiation exposures in the population living near Fukushima have ranged in the academic literature from none to hundreds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Accident rating of the Fukushima nuclear accident</span> INES rating of the Fukushima nuclear disaster

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster genshiryoku hatsudensho jiko) was a series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns, and releases of radioactive materials at the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, following the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011. It is the largest nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.

References

  1. ↑ "Medicos meet (radiophobia) (1903)". The Los Angeles Times. 1903-06-03. p. 11. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  2. ↑ "Radio show big success (1926)". The Republic. 1926-10-27. p. 2. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  3. ↑ "Radio fans storm annual convention and show here (1922)". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 1922-03-08. p. 4. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  4. ↑ "Have you a phobia? (1931)". The Salt Lake Tribune. 1931-12-13. p. 55. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  5. ↑ "Little theater is a recording room (radiophobia) (1937)". Portsmouth Daily Times. 1937-07-18. p. 10. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  6. ↑ "Radio manners. For the people who live next door- to the wireless. (1935)". The Sydney Morning Herald. 1935-04-16. p. 31. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  7. ↑ "YOU SAID IT... - Sunday Mail (Brisbane, Qld. : 1926 - 1954) - 4 Sep 1949". Trove. Retrieved 2017-04-22.
  8. ↑ "Radiophobia (1947)". The Morning Herald. 1947-10-14. p. 6. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  9. ↑ "Athletic director has radiophobia (1959)". Southern Illinoisan. 1959-01-01. p. 9. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  10. ↑ "Many American claimed suffering from radiophobia (1959)". Medford Mail Tribune. 1959-12-17. p. 25. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  11. ↑ "Unwarranted fear (radiophobia) (1968)". Lebanon Daily News. 1968-02-19. p. 4. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  12. ↑ "Unwarranted Fear (radiophobia) (1960)". The Times. 1960-02-22. p. 14. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  13. ↑ "X-Rays Demand Respect (1970)". Aiken Standard. 1970-01-01. p. 10. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  14. ↑ http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/ed20090301a2.html [ dead link ]
  15. 1 2 Lorna Arnold and Mark Smith. (2006). Britain, Australia and the Bomb, Palgrave Press.
  16. ↑ Keever, Beverly Deepe (February 25, 2004). "Shot in the Dark". Honolulu Weekly. Archived from the original on August 28, 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-30. The Japanese government and people dubbed it "a second Hiroshima" and it nearly led to severing diplomatic relations.
  17. 1 2 Keiji Hirano (Feb 29, 2004). "Bikini Atoll H-bomb damaged fisheries, created prejudice". chugoku. Retrieved 2008-11-30.
  18. ↑ Gerard DeGroot, The Bomb: A Life, Random House, 2004.
  19. ↑ On 25 April 1949 the US dollar was pegged to the YEN at $USD 1 = 360 YEN
  20. ↑ Chicago Sun-Times
  21. ↑ "Nuclear radiation 'the greatest public health hazard'". CNN . 25 March 2011. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
  22. ↑ "Radiophobia hits USSR after Chernobyl (1988)". Tyrone Daily Herald. 1988-02-10. p. 2. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  23. ↑ "Need to alert Chernobyl-area residents of cancer threat debated (1988)". The San Bernardino County Sun. 1988-05-14. p. 4. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  24. 1 2 "Studying the Fukushima Aftermath: 'People Are Suffering from Radiophobia'". Der Spiegel. 19 August 2011.
  25. ↑ Bella Belbéoch, RESPONSABILITES OCCIDENTALES DANS LES CONSEQUENCES SANITAIRES DE LA CATASTROPHE DE TCHERNOBYL, EN BIELORUSSIE, UKRAINE ET RUSSIE, in: Radioprotection et Droit nucléaire [eds.: Ivo Rens and, Joël Jakubec, collection SEBES, 1998, pp. 247-261 (English translation: "Western responsibility regarding the health consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe in Belarus, the Ukraine and Russia" Archived 2011-07-26 at the Wayback Machine )
  26. ↑ L. A. Ilyin and O. A. Pavlovsky,"Radiological consequences of the Chernobyl accident in the Soviet Union and measures taken to mitigate their impact" IAEA Bulletin 4/1987.
  27. ↑ "The Chernobyl Poems of Lyubov Sirota"
  28. ↑ "A Voice from Dead Pripyat" by Adolph Kharash Science Director, Moscow State University Archived 2010-05-28 at the Wayback Machine
  29. ↑ "Chernobyl Aftereffects Mostly Psychological (radiophobia) (1988)". Daily Sitka Sentinel. 1988-12-19. p. 2. Retrieved 2017-04-21.
  30. ↑ Kasperson, Roger E.; Stallen, Pieter Jan M. (1991). Communicating Risks to the Public: International Perspectives. Berlin: Springer Science and Media. pp. 160–162. ISBN   0-7923-0601-5.
  31. ↑ Knudsen, LB (1991). "Legally induced abortions in Denmark after Chernobyl". Biomed Pharmacother. 45 (6): 229–31. doi:10.1016/0753-3322(91)90022-l. PMID   1912378.
  32. ↑ Trichopoulos D, Zavitsanos X, Koutis C, Drogari P, Proukakis C, Petridou E (1987). "The victims of chernobyl in Greece: induced abortions after the accident". Br Med J (Clin Res Ed). 295 (6606): 1100. doi:10.1136/bmj.295.6606.1100. PMC   1248180 . PMID   3120899.
  33. ↑ Parazzini F, Repetto F, Formigaro M, Fasoli M, La Vecchia C (1988). "Induced abortions after the Chernobyl accident". Br Med J (Clin Res Ed). 296 (6615): 136. doi:10.1136/bmj.296.6615.136-a. PMC   2544742 . PMID   3122957.
  34. ↑ Perucchi, M.; Domenighetti, G. (Dec 1990). "The Chernobyl accident and induced abortions: only one-way information". Scand J Work Environ Health. 16 (6): 443–4. doi: 10.5271/sjweh.1761 . PMID   2284594.
  35. ↑ Alvin M. Weinberg (1 January 1994). The First Nuclear Era: The Life and Times of a Technological Fixer. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 181–182. ISBN   978-1-56396-358-2.
  36. ↑ Zbigniew Jaworowski, Radiation Risk and Ethics Archived 2005-11-19 at the Wayback Machine , Physics Today, 52(9), September 1999, pp. 24-29
  37. ↑ Sacks, Bill; Meyerson, Gregory; Siegel, Jeffry A. (2016). "Epidemiology Without Biology: False Paradigms, Unfounded Assumptions, and Specious Statistics in Radiation Science (with Commentaries by Inge Schmitz-Feuerhake and Christopher Busby and a Reply by the Authors)". Biological Theory. 11 (2): 69–101. doi:10.1007/s13752-016-0244-4. ISSN   1555-5542. PMC   4917595 . PMID   27398078.
  38. ↑ Thomas, Geraldine. "Minimising the Health Consequences of Nuclear Accidents – Do We Need to Reassess Our Response?" (PDF).
  39. ↑ Johnson, George (2015-09-21). "When Radiation Isn't the Real Risk". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2023-02-17.
  40. ↑ Freiherr, G. (2010). "We have to calm dose hysteria…RIGHT NOW!". Diagnostic Imaging.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.