What's this preoccupation with evil scientists? Boffins are no more interested in dropping bombs than politicians are in the fact E=mc2. The manhattan project took place largely during wartime when pretty much the entire country was geared towards killing the other guy and surviving for another day. Not a radical idea at the time.

Do we halt the development of computer engineering because computers control the warhead and guidance systems?

Nuclear technology has peaceful applications in medicine, astrophysics and the study of atmomic structure, apart from the general desire for scientific understanding.

Once again science has been identified as the culprit, the agent of change, that which drives political debate. "If the teachers abandon the bomb perhaps politicians will follow."

Other way around, buddy!

Istvan,

Your post only makes sense if you consider dose and dose rate in units of Gray or Gray per hour*.

You can not eliminate radiation exposure to human population. For instance we are all subject to both external and internal radiation from cosmic rays, and/or natural occurring radio nuclides. We also have exposure as a result of fall out from atom bomb testing etc. These are small exposures of the order of 1-2mGy per year.

The effects you are talking about cut in at dose of about 700-1000 mGy or much higher.

Following Mettler FA in New Eng J Med 2002; acute whole body exposure below 0.5Gy no effect.

• 1Gy nausea and vomiting in about 10% of exposed persons.

• Clinical non lethal bone marrow set about a 2Gy exposure.

• 4Gy exposure severe symptoms and 50% mortality with out medical treatment.

• 6Gy 100% mortality from bone marrow failure with out expert medical treatment.

• 10Gy approximate level that a few may survive with the help of expert treatment.

Of course in civil practice acute high dose is a very rare occurrence. At lower exposure and exposure rates the effect is stochastic or if you like is derived from probability theory. For several decades public health authorities have based their regulations following ICRP on a linear non threshold hypothesis (LNTH) for dose response in respect of malignant disease.

“THE GREENS” like to misuse LNTH to tell us that even the most microscopic exposure dose is harmful. However, there are also many authorities that are doubtful that epidemiological studies can consistently detect an adverse effect below an exposure of 50-100 mGy.

On other thing predications made on the base of LNTH, say after Chernobyl have proved to be grossly unhelpful and widely inaccurate,

* Gy the SI unit for absorbed dose; 1Gy = 1000mGy = 1Joule/kg