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Radioactive Risk Set
coordinated by
Jean-Claude Amiard
Volume 2
Industrial and Medical Nuclear Accidents
Environmental, Ecological, Health and Socio-economic Consequences
Jean-Claude Amiard
First published 2019 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:
ISTE Ltd
27-37 St George’s Road
London SW19 4EU
UK
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
111 River Street
Hoboken, NJ 07030
USA
© ISTE Ltd 2019
The rights of Jean-Claude Amiard to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019933513
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78630-334-9
Preface
The danger posed by radioactivity came to light a few days after the discovery of this phenomenon by the very person who discovered “uraniferous salts”, Professor Henri Becquerel himself, when a red mark and then a burn appeared on his skin within the space of a few days when he left a tube of radium in his jacket pocket. This did not prevent radioactivity from becoming a great attraction to the public, since it had amazing virtues. A person apparently just had to drink radioactive waters, consume food and use medicines containing radium, dress in wool containing radium, use radioactive cosmetics and have watches and clocks whose needles were luminous due to this radioactive element. This enthusiasm continued into the 1930s [AMI 13a].
The dangerous nature of radioactivity was confirmed by research scientists, such as Marie Curie, by uranium miners subjected to high levels of exposure to radon and its decay products, and by radiologists who irradiated themselves intensely at the same time as their patients, accumulating their exposure over time.
While the danger of radioactivity is well known today, radioactive risk is nevertheless tricky to estimate because it depends on numerous different parameters. Radiosensitivity is mainly a function
