Radiation-Studies Books

"Truth is the daughter of time", a saying used by Alice Stewart, cannot come soon enough in this era.
Gayle Greene should be held in the highest esteem for the eloquent presentation of Alice Stewart's quest for truth. Her writing is crisp and unencumbered, and it hold the reader's interest into the life of this feisty, humorous, brilliant woman. Dr. Stewart, just by being of the female gender, found it hard to be taken seriously, and it was not until late in her life that she was honored for a life of accomplishment and dedication. A simple woman born to parents who were both doctors; doctors who put their patients ahead of money and power.
It was a tenet to be carried on by their daughter, Alice Stewart, who never gave up trying to educate the public about radiation proliferation. Thanks to her, thousands of babies were saved from the horrors of exposure to radiation when the medical profession listened to what she had to say about xraying during the first trimester.
Later Alice was funded to examine the effects of radiation on works who handled nuclear materials and weaponry. When her message was not what the AEC and others wanted to hear or receive, they tried to confiscate her work and cut her funding. Indeed, the funding was cut off, but she managed to secure her work and continue its research. Gayle Greene's writing abilities are able to give you the sense of Dr. Stewart's anguish and frustration.
The Woman Who Knew Too Much is a classic example of the control of information which the public direly needs, but which is buried and censored. This book, though written several years ago, is as pertinent as if it were published yesterday, and it should be read by all who are interested in the welfare of humanity. The inclusion in a science or social studies curriculum of the developing minds of students would be a well-deserved legacy for this wonderful woman who died in 2002 at the age of 96.

As Research Director of the Hanford Veterans Cancer Mortality Study I have worked closely with Dr. Alice Stewart. I have learned from her, laughed with her and admired her as the most extraordinary human being I have ever known. But, I never knew her well enough. You must read this book! It will give you a new understanding of the meaning of courage and integrity. More importantly - have your children, especially your daughters, read this book. Thank goodness Gayle Greene has written this eminently readable biography of Alice. It allows us to understand where her drive comes from and how Dr. Stewart can suffer the slings and arrows of the federal scientific pygmies who attack her work. The heart of the story, and a key to Dr. Stewart's personality, can be found in the juxtaposition of the the ending words of Chapter 13 where Professor Greene says "Alice is called in by...radiation victims, her investigations turn up cancer in excess ... the studies are handed over to official bodies...the official studies invoke the A-bomb data to discredit her finds....Time passes." `It's a long, slow business,' she (Dr. Stewart) says." Compare this with one of Dr. Stewart's favorite quotations, "truth is the daughter of time." She has waited, we will wait; but Dr. Helen Caldicott is right "her work may (I say `will') receive the recognition and thanks of the future." When one finishes reading this marvelous book one cannot help but think of George Sand saying "humanity is outraged in me and with me. We must not dissimulate nor try to forget this indignation; which is one of the most passionate forms of love." Thank the Good Lord for this stunning creature called Alice Stewart. And thank Gayle Greene for helping us to know her just a bit better.

Courage and Integrity in Science: A Precious Rarety

The Woman Who Knew Too Much: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation by Gayle Greene. Dr. Stewart is a British physician and epidemiologist (born in 1906 into a large family of physicians) who revolutionized the concept of radiation risk. In the 1950s, while surveying childhood mortalities in the British Isles, she finds that then quite common X-ray examinations during pregnancy doubled the risk for childhood cancer. Fueled by the wrath of radiologists, her work has been viciously derided among the medical establishment for more than two decades. In the 1970s, she finds that some workers at nuclear weapons production sites, such as Hanford, WA or Oakridge, TN are dying of radiation induced cancers, showing that presumed "safe" levels of occupational exposures put these workers at a twenty times higher risk than officially admitted. With that finding she places herself on the "enemy list" of an immensely powerful nuclear weapons establishment, including its scientific elite, and at the center of an international controversy over radiation risks. Stewart's fascinating story, a collaborative memoir told by herself and Greene with verve and humor, is one of a woman scientist's ingenuity, independence, perseverance, compassion, and integrity, a fascinating tale in the checkered history of a mostly male-dominated science. Rudi H. Nussbaum, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Physics and Environmental Science.

The book spans the lifetimes of Dr. Stewart and her parents. It offers a fascinating description of medicine in Britain in the late 19th century, the entry of women into the medical field, and the institutional resistance in the second half of the 20th century to the fact that low levels of radiation are dangerous. Given the recent announcements by the US Government concerning health risks in the nuclear arms industry, this is a timely and fascinating book. Well written and researched.

As a physicist with no experience in climatology, I'm finding this book a good source of information to help sort out the many conflicting views on climate change. Readers will find some background in mathematics helpful, but not essential, in understanding the material.

This is pure Climate Theory straight to the veins. I chose this book looking for something that clearly explain the theory behind atmosphere, ocean and the problem of global warming without going into the details and this is what I found in this book, plus a wonderful explanation for the non-specialist. There are formulae in this book, but in my case, I focused more in the concepts.
The book is masterfully arranged, with lots of tables, figures and references, covering topics such as Ozone layer, clouds and aerosols, energy transfer, astronomicals changes that affect climate, measuring systems, other planets climates and more. Excellent book Mr. Taylor.

I read the book a few years ago and was shocked at the lack of concern for this information in our daily lives. It is clear that we are all linked to electromagnetic fields and waves be it a hair dryer, an electric shaver, an electrical generator or a pencil sharpener. Yet it appears that few of us are actually armed with the knowledge of the "concerns" over the damaging issues with regards to our bodies, both young and old. I let my original copy slip through my hands, thank you Amazon.com for being an outlet to a great, but what I believe is a suppressed issue. I will be buying several for family and friends.

Sincerely,

I read this book years ago and could not find it ANYWHERE, despite a pretty dedicated search. No doubt, it is a hotly debated topic, much like the cell-phone emmissions issue. This is a must read for anyone who is trying to assume responsibility in their lives, the lives of their children or simply planning properly for a safe future. Many people avoid this type of "fact-based" study - it's a pain/pleasure thing. We gravitate to items that cause us pleasure and avoid things that could cause us pain. Reading this is not painful, it is very enlightening. Avoiding it could prove deadly - but heh, that's what we have health insurance for right? Kudos Amazon.

This book is an classic in the area of physics. Anyone who likes physics should read it. Feynman makes everything much more simple to understand.

R.P. Feynman was more than just a physicist with a staggering intuitive understanding of the machinery of complex equations and physical laws, he was also very human and sane and filled with simple awe at the natural world. If you want to begin to understand the kind of genius he had, and to feel his enthusiasm for teaching, then buy the first book of this set. It is the easiest to follow since it deals with basic physics for the most part. If you have a solid physics background, and/or a high IQ, then venture forth into volume two and three.

Richly researched and clearly written, this book is a find! Has just the right amount of detail to provide the reader with the degrees of difficulty in conducting nuclear terrorism but does not overwhelm.
The "four faces" of nuclear terrorism described in the book are (1) theft of a nuclear weapon, (2) construction of a nuclear weapon (3) damage to a nuclear reactor or facility, and (4) construction of a radiological dispersal device. The authors succintly analyze each of these scenarios and clearly present the challenges involved by terrorists attempting each task. Devoid of hype, absent political rhetoric, the book is superb at providing the general reader with an appreciation for the actual risks America faces from this area. Particularly recommended for those engaged in the profession of CBRN defense.
Apparently out of print which is a shame, try to get your hands on a copy and read it.

This book possesses two advantages over other accounts: 1) as a product of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Monterey Institute, which has the leading archive of information on the subject, it offers rich, precisely documented detail; and 2) besides discussing how terrorists might acquire an existing nuclear weapon or fashion their own (Faces #1 and 2), it offers in-depth treatments of terrorist threats to nuclear plants (#3) and the use of radiological weapons (#4). A more comprehensive approach than one focussed just on the bomb, this leads to superior analysis and recommendations regarding ranking of priority issues and solutions. I found of special value the authors' many imaginative proposals, e.g., encourage Japan to build a strategic reserve of low-enriched uranium from Russia rather than to proceed with its plutonium separation plant. The authors' discussion of the gaping holes in the approaches of the U.S. Government and other governments should cause us to treat with skepticism our leaders' avowals of how seriously they take these threats.
If you are looking for a reliable, comprehensive, understandable, and thoughtful guide to nuclear terrorism, I recommend this book.

Millions of cases of cancer, AND millions of cases of coronary heart disease, can be prevented by means of simple, systematic changes in the ways doctors use X-rays. This is the message in this monumental book by one of the world's most distinguished authorities on the effects of radiation on health.

In spite of its formidable title and length, Gofman's book is readable by the educated public. Its analysis is brilliantly simple. Although his actual journey was far more circuitous and demanding, in effect what Gofman did was to go to the library, copy some numbers out of standard references, and plot the results on easily understood graphs. Gofman found that the number of doctors per capita varied in different regions of the country, and that death rates from various causes did, too. When the death rate for everything-BUT-cancer-and-heart-disease was plotted against doctors-per-capita, the result was (as we would hope and expect), the more doctors, the lower the death rates.

But when a similar plot was done for overall cancer death rate, the result was, the more doctors, the MORE deaths from cancer, with the most "doctor-dense" region having a cancer death rate about DOUBLE that of the least doctor-dense region. The relationship is extremely strong, both statistically and by visual inspection of the graph. Gofman's explanation: It's well known radiation can cause cancer, and doctors, so to say, cause radiation through use of diagnostic X-rays, CT scans, etc.

Contrasting with the very high doses of radiation used to TREAT cancer, most medical uses involve low doses--ones so low, according to conventional wisdom, that they have negligible effects. Gofman says that his results show that the conventional wisdom is wrong, and that simply by MEASURING the doses actually administered, and using the information to constantly and incrementally improve technique, dosage can be greatly lowered without losing any of the undoubted benefits of medical X-rays. He lists from the literature many available but little-used methods to reduce dose, generally at modest expense. "Cost is not a big obstacle," he writes. "The big obstacle is [achieving] recognition that [accumulated dose] really matters."

Gofman examined many causes of death individually. Every kind of cancer death rate he looked at (except one) INcreased with increased doctors-per-capita. And most kinds of non-cancer death rates DEcreased - with one major exception: coronary heart disease. Its plot looks very like the one for cancer.

Gofman, who has been writing about the dangers of low-dose radiation for many years, expected his cancer results, but he was startled by the heart disease graph. Turning to the literature, he found evidence going back to 1973 that small benign tumors in the walls of blood vessels are implicated in hardening of the arteries. These radiation-induced benign tumors provide a reasonable and likely explanation for his unexpected heart disease finding, one that re-emphasizes the need for better management of medical radiation.

Gofman uses his data to estimate the fraction of cases of heart disease and of various kinds of cancer that would not have happened but for use of medical X-rays. The figures vary from about 50% to more than 80%. A clincher for the soundness of his analysis is that in an earlier book, Preventing Breast Cancer (1995), using entirely different methods, Gofman estimated the proportion of breast cancers due to medical radiation to be 75% or more. The breast cancer estimate from his new book is 83%, in remarkable agreement.

Many other causes of cancer are known or suspected. How can X-rays account for such high proportions? The answer is that they do not do it alone. Most cases of cancer are almost certainly the result of multiple causes. That is, typically, several inputs are necessary to cause a cancer, and elimination of any one of the inputs can prevent the cancer. Thus, reducing radiation exposures helps prevent all the cancers that needed a radiation input of a certain size in order to occur.

The thing about ionizing radiation is that, besides being a thoroughly proven cause, it is such a controllable cause. Unlike smoking, for example, where masses of people need to change their behavior, with medical X-rays, only some medical professionals must.

The Executive Summary of Gofman's book, including his remarkable graphs, is available (free) on-line. To find it, Google: "radiation from medical procedures"

This review was originally prepared for and appeared in the January-February 2000 issue of the bulletin of the Illinois Student Environmental Network.

I am a professor of radiation biology at the Westfaelische Wilhelms-University in Muenster, Germany. German Television sent me an advanced copy of this book and asked for my evaluation of it. My opinion is that this book is a new great contribution to the scientific knowledge. The book is didactively very well organized. A must for every radiologist in the world. Gofman's results are in excellent agreement with the latest findings of scientists at the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Hiroshima. They report in the October issue of Radiation Resaerch that in the exposed population deaths due to stroke and ischemic heart disease are significantly increased and dose related. Thus ionizing radiation is not only inducing cancer and mutations but also non malignant diseases like stroke, heart, digestive and respiratory diseases, just as Gofman's results indicate.

This is the 4th edition of this book, which suggests that it is worthwhile. And that is the case. It is lengthy, thorough, but surprisingly readable. Chapters talk about various subtopics in modest detail. Often, I could wish for more specifics, but for a book of this scope of subject, that would not be practical. Illustrations and graphics are informative and useful. The book is timeless, though new research of course makes the new editions necessary--We still have a copy of the first edition (from 1963) where I work, but a copy of the latest edition is essential if you work or study in the radiation field.

This book can be used for several courses in environmental sciences or earth sciences. It covers all major topics, provides a complete overview of cross disciplinary fields and as such is an invaluable tool for students and teachers. I especially liked the mathematical introduction. All in all, job well done!

I have been using all of the Dental study materials and let me say this product is the best out of all.easy to read and understand, small to carry around and walk with . I even took them out of country to study on vacation. THE BEST STUDY MATERIAl.

This work is by far the most outstanding text in the field. It's completeness and attention to detail make it a "must have" for students of radiation hydrodynamics as well as for experts in the field. The republication of this book by Dover has done the field a great service second only to the service provided by the authors in writing it!