This is an excellent book for both student and adult readers by Robert Peter Gale, M. D., PH. D. and Eric Lax.  Gale is a scientist and physicist who has been involved in treating victims from every major nuclear accident in the past twenty-five years.  Lax is an author of non-fiction books.  Together they have written a book that is factual and easy to read, and that does not push any political position.  My one complaint is the lack of an index.  The authors provide a fine discussion of topics including terminology, medical issues, irradiation of food, how people access risk, and discussions of several high-profile incidents (including Hiroshima, Chernobyl, and Fukushima).  They have written an excellent reference book, including a website with links to articles on their main topics, and an index would make it easier to use.

The authors say “we live in a sea of radiation… Because radiation touches every aspect of our lives – it is, in fact, responsible for our lives – it is essential to know what radiation is, how it works and what it can and cannot do.”  People “know very little about radiation… [and] most of us are unaccustomed to carefully weighing competing risks and benefits.”  They address topics we read about in the media:  nuclear power and power plant accidents, fallout from nuclear bomb tests, food irradiation, cancer, and birth defects.

The authors are concerned that people’s fears are disproportionate to the risks. People worry about the wrong things and can, therefore, ignore real risks.  For example, people should not worry about radiation from their TVs or cell phones, but should worry about radiation from medical procedures and, in some areas, radon gas in their homes.

The book opens with a 1985 nuclear accident in Brazil.  A medical device is stolen from a clinic, broken up as scrap metal, and the radiation source unwittingly spread across the city.  Within forty-eight hours people were ill, but it was over two weeks before physicians realized what was happening.  The Brazilian Navy brought Gale into the case.  Eventually 110,000 people were sent to the town’s soccer stadium for triage.  Thankfully, the incident was not as big a disaster as feared.  Seventy-nine people required out-patient treatment, twenty were hospitalized, and fourteen were secretly treated at a naval hospital for bone marrow failure.  Four died.  One lesson the authors draw is that being unaware of radiations dangers can be fatal.  “Another lesson is that the dangers of radiation are not necessarily what you suppose them to be.”  The book goes on to provide an over-view of radiation that every person in the modern world should have.

There is a fine ‘questions and answers’ section in the back of book, with answers that reiterate sections of the book.  I even found the ‘acknowledgments’ interesting to scan.  The authors have drawn on a huge range of experts in many countries.  How often does an author thank President Mikhail Gorbachev for allowing him to work on nuclear incidents in the former Soviet Union?  Gale tells an exciting story of bringing experimental drugs into the Soviet Union to treat Chernobyl survivors, and having to prove their safety by injecting himself and a Soviet colleague with the drug.

This book is a fine companion to An Insider’s View of Rocky Flats which you will find discussed elsewhere on this site.  It should be on the book shelf of anyone who wants to educate themselves about radiation.