Radiophobia
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==Effects== | ==Effects== | ||
| − | The most obvious effect is the reduced use of nuclear technology, including [[nuclear power]], medical imaging, nuclear medicine, and [[food irradiation]], and its increased cost due to having to deal with restrictive regulation | + | The most obvious effect is the reduced use of nuclear technology, including [[nuclear power]], medical imaging, nuclear medicine, and [[food irradiation]], and its increased cost due to having to deal with restrictive regulation.<ref>[http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter9.html Bernard Cohen: The Nuclear Energy Option, chapter 9: Cost of Nuclear Power Plants - What Went Wrong?]</ref> The alternatives to them are often more expensive, less effective or more environmentally destructive. Naturally, nuclear technologies are not a magic silver bullet and have their disadvantages, but a faulty assessment of their dangers benefits nobody. |
| − | + | Perception of nuclear energy is perhaps the most affected. The common perception is that nuclear power is dangerous, even though it is actually one of the safest industries to work in<ref>[http://www.cleanenergyinsight.org/interesting/comparing-industry-safety/ Clean Energy Insight - Comparing Industry Safety]</ref> and kills the lowest number of people per unit of energy produced.<ref>[http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html Next Big Future: Comparing deaths/TWh for all energy sources]</ref> When an accident occurs at a nuclear power plant, it is guaranteed to be front-page news, no matter its real impact.<ref>Examples of reports about non-events: [http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/03/nation/la-na-nuclear-safety-20111004] [http://www.thelocal.se/36914/20111023/] and the Vermont Yankee tritium leak e.g. [http://www.wmur.com/r/22953641/detail.html]</ref><ref name="pew">[http://www.people-press.org/2011/03/22/most-are-attentive-to-news-about-disaster-in-japan/ Pew Research Center: Most Are Attentive to News About Disaster in Japan]</ref> When a genuinely severe accident happens, the adverse effects of the fear of radiation can be more severe than the effects of radiation itself (see below). | |
Quite ironically, fear is what makes [[dirty bomb]]s a viable terrorist weapon. While the damage from such a device might not be much greater than from the conventional explosive alone, the fear of radiation among the public makes them very useful for disruption.<ref>[http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/dirty-bombs-bg.html NRC: Backgrounder on Dirty Bombs]</ref> | Quite ironically, fear is what makes [[dirty bomb]]s a viable terrorist weapon. While the damage from such a device might not be much greater than from the conventional explosive alone, the fear of radiation among the public makes them very useful for disruption.<ref>[http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/dirty-bombs-bg.html NRC: Backgrounder on Dirty Bombs]</ref> | ||
Revision as of 03:28, 8 November 2011
| The mightiest of them all |
| Radioactive pages |
Fear of radiation, sometimes described in more inflammatory terms, such as radiophobia or radiation hysteria, is a common social phenomenon. Ionizing radiation is obviously not healthy, and in some situations there are legitimate reasons to be afraid of it, but the level of angst it generates is an overreaction[1] and sometimes ends up being a bigger problem than radiation exposure itself.
Fear of radiation leads to pervasive special pleading, where risks associated with radioactivity are perceived as more undesirable than equal risks from something non-radioactive. This creates a severely distorted picture of dangers resulting from the use of nuclear technologies, and is an important factor driving the opposition to them.[2][3]
Contents |
Causes
Concerns about nuclear radiation are rooted in several phenomena:
- Very poor understanding of radiation phenomena and the health effects of radiation by the general public.
- Cold War culture, which associated radiation with the devastating power of nuclear bombs. This association was further strengthened by the popular interpretation of the Armageddon and other end of the world prophecies as nuclear war.
- Efforts of the nuclear disarmament movement, and later the anti-nuclear movement.
- Inadequate response of radiation protection bodies to public concern.[4]
Effects
The most obvious effect is the reduced use of nuclear technology, including nuclear power, medical imaging, nuclear medicine, and food irradiation, and its increased cost due to having to deal with restrictive regulation.[5] The alternatives to them are often more expensive, less effective or more environmentally destructive. Naturally, nuclear technologies are not a magic silver bullet and have their disadvantages, but a faulty assessment of their dangers benefits nobody.
Perception of nuclear energy is perhaps the most affected. The common perception is that nuclear power is dangerous, even though it is actually one of the safest industries to work in[6] and kills the lowest number of people per unit of energy produced.[7] When an accident occurs at a nuclear power plant, it is guaranteed to be front-page news, no matter its real impact.[8][9] When a genuinely severe accident happens, the adverse effects of the fear of radiation can be more severe than the effects of radiation itself (see below).
Quite ironically, fear is what makes dirty bombs a viable terrorist weapon. While the damage from such a device might not be much greater than from the conventional explosive alone, the fear of radiation among the public makes them very useful for disruption.[10]
Specific examples
Chernobyl
The negative effects of an unreasonable fear of radiation are well documented in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster. After the accident, the only radiation-related disease that increased in the surrounding population was thyroid cancer. It is a serious ailment, but generally treatable. At the same time psychological and psychosomatic disorders, such as anxiety, stress, depression, alcoholism, suicide and cardiovascular diseases, increased sharply. These were related not to radiation exposure, but to the intense fear experienced by people affected by the disaster.[11]
Fukushima
The fear of radiation manifested itself on many occasions after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan, which severely damaged a nuclear power plant. The nuclear crisis received 51% of all news coverage about the disaster.[9] No one was killed by radiation released in the accident, although five people died at the plant from other causes (tsunami and stress).[12] Other events, such as a refinery fire,[13] a dam collapse which actually killed some people[14] and the general devastation and 30 000 dead and missing from the earthquake and tsunami, did not receive as much attention.
Overly strict regulations only made the problem worse. Many batches of food which showed increased radioactivity were considered unfit for consumption, even though it would be virtually impossible for anyone to suffer any ill effect from eating it.[15] Eating the worst contaminated spinach in large quantities for a year would result in as much exposure as a CT scan. CT scans are routine medical procedure and result in about 10 mSv of exposure, or about three times the yearly natural background. It would be impossible to eat the contaminated batches of spinach for an entire year, because it would spoil. Similar over-conservatism prompted a warning against giving tap water to babies, which did nothing except scare people that their water supply is in danger.[16] If an infant drank 1 liter of tap water for a year (hardly possible), the exposure would be about as harmful as a CT scan is to an adult (basically not at all). Iodine-131 decays almost completely in 90 days. Given that the reactors were damaged and the fission process was stopped, they would not produce any new iodine-131, so it would be impossible for the reported level of contamination to persist over an entire year. The contaminated spinach and water never posed any real danger to anyone, but paranoid regulations made them seem like a big problem.
International reaction
There was never any danger of adverse health effects for people outside of the 30 km zone around the plant, but the scare spread well beyond Japan's borders. In the U.S., fake maps of fallout supposedly caused by the accident, which showed the west coast as receiving lethal doses of radiation, spread virally and resulted in a brief panic.[17] In mainland China, there was a run on iodized salt, resulting from the mistaken belief that the iodine in the salt will have the same effect as iodine tablets.[18] A similar run on iodine tablets happened in the U.S., and was even endorsed by the Surgeon General.[19] In India, a civilian was killed and 20 were injured after a protest near the planned Jaitapur nuclear plant intensified and turned violent after news of the accident in Japan.[20]
The German decision to phase out nuclear power after the Fukushima accident is the prime example of radiation fears driving national policy. The switch to other forms of energy is expected to cost around $340 billion over 10 years in required investments alone[21] (which represents over 1% of German GDP), will increase carbon emissions and electricity prices, and might endanger the shift away from coal power in Europe.[22] The expected increased demand for natural gas from Germany is causing Russia to extend the lives of its RBMK (Chernobyl-type) reactors in order to be able to sell more of its gas, so the move is counterproductive even from a nuclear safety standpoint.[23]
Concerns about nuclear radiation often come into play in debates over technologies where radiation is not really an important factor. This might happen in two different ways. First, a minuscule radiation dose resulting from some activity, or the mere association with something radioactive, might be used to shore up an argument against it. Second, an argument against an activity which is genuinely harmful or undesirable might be strengthened by highlighting the radiation exposure resulting from it, which is in fact not significant.
The first type of argument is notorious in attacks on food irradiation, which does not result in any extra dose to the consumer.[24]
Backscatter X-ray scanners
There was a wave of opposition to backscatter X-ray scanners used on airports on the basis of the radiation exposure caused by them and its health effects.[25] In reality, the dose is completely insignificant even for frequent travelers, and far lower than the dose received during the flight itself.[26] What should drive the opposition is the unreasonable invasion of privacy and the overall paranoia and security theater of air travel. However, these genuine arguments are apparently too abstract.
Radioactive tobacco
Quit smoking groups sometimes comment about radiation doses received from smoking.[27] While it does seem that radiation may be an important factor in lung cancer resulting from smoking,[28] whether the cancer is caused by radioactive or chemical carcinogens is ultimately irrelevant, and logically should not affect people's decisions.
Misunderstandings
The nuclear magnetic resonance technique, widely used in chemical analysis, was further developed as an imaging technique for diagnostic medicine in the 1970s. However, the "nuclear" part of the name (which is still common in chemistry) is dropped for medical applications, partially because MRI is a little easier than NMRI, but not least because patients were afraid of the word "nuclear" in the procedure's name.[29] MRI procedures do not result in any radiation exposure.
Some things do not emit any ionizing radiation, but are discussed as if they did, probably due to confusion between the effects of different types of radiation (ionizing vs non-ionizing). This includes microwave ovens, wireless networking and cell phones.
See also
Footnotes
- ↑ BBC News: Viewpoint: Viewpoint: We should stop running away from radiation
- ↑ Bernard Cohen: Nuclear Power Risk
- ↑ Bernard Cohen: The Nuclear Energy Option, chapter 8 - Understanding risk
- ↑ http://www.radscihealth.org/rsh/Realism/Rockwell04DecNN-RealismProject.pdf
- ↑ Bernard Cohen: The Nuclear Energy Option, chapter 9: Cost of Nuclear Power Plants - What Went Wrong?
- ↑ Clean Energy Insight - Comparing Industry Safety
- ↑ Next Big Future: Comparing deaths/TWh for all energy sources
- ↑ Examples of reports about non-events: [1] [2] and the Vermont Yankee tritium leak e.g. [3]
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Pew Research Center: Most Are Attentive to News About Disaster in Japan
- ↑ NRC: Backgrounder on Dirty Bombs
- ↑ http://www.greenfacts.org/en/chernobyl/l-2/2-health-effects-chernobyl.htm#0
- ↑ Asian Correspondent: The Fukushima Death Toll
- ↑ http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/121661/20110311/fire-chiba-prefecture-japan-earthquake-cosmo-oil-co-refinery-japan-atomic-power-co-tsunami.htm
- ↑ http://www.hydroworld.com/index/display/article-display/5036367493/articles/hrhrw/News-2/2011/03/dam-breaks_following.html
- ↑ World Nuclear News: Food samples show raised radiation
- ↑ World Nuclear News: Warning on Tokyo tap water
- ↑ snopes.com: Nuclear Fallout Map
- ↑ CNN: Chinese scramble to buy salt as radiation fears grow
- ↑ Japan Probe: Japan Nuclear Radiation: Fear Mongering vs. Facts
- ↑ Christian Science Monitor: Japan's Fukushima crisis drives protests over world's largest nuclear plant in India
- ↑ http://www.thelocal.de/money/20110919-37687.html
- ↑ http://www.globe-net.com/articles/2011/june/3/german-nuclear-phase-out-ignites-push-for-coal,-gas/?sub=
- ↑ WSJ: Russia to Extend Life of Aging Reactors
- ↑ Iowa State University: Consumer Questions About Food Irradiation
- ↑ http://www.rense.com/general41/airporttravelerstoget.htm
- ↑ American College of Radiology: Statement on Airport Full-body Scanners and Radiation
- ↑ ACSA: Radioactive tobacco
- ↑ EPA: Radiation Protection: Tobacco Smoke
- ↑ Science Museum UK: Magnetic Resonance Imaging