The risks of radiation

In Radiation and Reason, Allison attempts to give readers the background scientific knowledge they need to overcome the fear they may have when thinking about nuclear power’s role in addressing environmental concerns such as climate change. Allison’s goal is worthwhile. A more educated public would indeed facilitate greater confidence and less fear in how nuclear power is used.

Compared to previous attempts, which have been aimed at more technical audiences, Allison’s book is distinguished by being aimed at a general audience. For example, he starts with a description of ‘The Atomic Nucleus’ and continues with a discussion of doses and the varied biological responses to radiation exposure. Nuclear fission and fusion are also discussed, along with their associated waste production.

Because Allison attempts to provide a brief background of many different nuclear topics, the exposition would have benefited from greater coverage and better organization of the key issues that tend to engender fear in the public, namely the risks and health effects of radiation. He also could have extended the debate to discuss how these risks are then used to formulate public policy decisions. For example, the biological effects of different levels of radiation exposure are discussed in chapters 5 to 7. However, the discussion of how this information is applied to formulate public policy decisions is only briefly discussed in a subsection of a subsequent chapter. Therefore, when Allison does focus on these issues, his coverage may be too brief to truly allay people’s fears.

Ultimately, fully allaying people’s fears may not be possible, since the scientific community itself is not in agreement about what the risks are. Allison mentions the ongoing scientific debate between expert communities for and against the use of the linear no threshold (LNT) risk model. However, instead of viewing this dispute as an advance in understanding the true implications of radiation exposure, this divisive debate may actually be causing more harm to public perception. For the scientific and technical community, this debate stimulates a healthy re-evaluation of old assumptions and shows that progress is being made toward evidence-based modelling versus assumption-based modelling. However, the public may be left with the impression that not much is known of the health consequences and in the interim, protection at any cost should be applied. This contradicts the fact that radiation is probably one of the best-studied hazards to date and much is actually known of its health consequences.

Although educating the public is an important component in minimizing people’s fears of radiation, to truly encourage them to take part in policy discussions, additional education of basic scientific concepts such as statistical reasoning may be needed. Presenting the public with knowledge of the risks in itself may not be sufficient to encourage discussion because there is still a need for the public to critically assess the information and interpret it for real world application. The media also has a responsibility to adequately represent the scientific results in a meaningful way so as not to over simplify complex issues for the sake of readership. Internalization of these risks by the public may eventually help address their fears of radiation and will hopefully enable more informed participation in policy making.

Phung Tran is a senior project manager and technical lead in the Radiation Management Program at the Electric Power Research Institute, 3420 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, California 94304 USA. As an independent non-profit organisation, EPRI does not endorse any person, organisation or product; nor does any discussion of them imply an endorsement from EPRI.