Thread by @Cecalli_Helper

"Sumiko Hatakeyama begins the roundtable with a useful summary of some of the main themes in Political Fallout, situating the book in relation to other key works as well as to recent events like the 2011 debacle" at Fukushima networks.h-net.org/system/files/c… #genpatsu @BeyondNuclear @napf

https://twitter.com/Cecalli_Helper/status/1447202029928165377

"Once these investigations revealed the dispersal of radioactive fallout around the planet, scientists and government officials were forced to confront how dangerous these exposures might be." #nuclear #atomic #bombs #weapons #radiation #radioactive

"evidence of genetic damage at even minute levels of radiation exposure compounded the difficulty in assessing the health & environmental risks of nuclear tests. Eventually known as the “linear non-threshold” hypothesis, this research suggested that there could never be a truly"

"could never be a truly safe, harmless amount of fallout. Scientists both inside and outside the U.S. government agreed that the linear non-threshold hypothesis had a reasonable scientific basis but hesitated to “apply this knowledge to regulatory action”"

"Higuchi describes how U.S. geneticists eventually came around to publishing a recommended “permissible dose” that would allow continued use of nuclear technology in medicine and for weapons security."

"For them, it was better to put forward a potentially arbitrary number rather than allow government officials to set a permissible exposure level without guidance from geneticists. As Burger had suggested, they ultimately chose a limit that accounted for the radiation typically"

"emitted from medical technologies, with an additional allocation for exposures from nuclear weapons tests."

@threadreaderapp unroll please and thank you