Jean-Claude Amiard - Industrial and Medical Nuclear Accidents

5 Chapter 5Figure 5.1. Distribution of the number of radiological accidents according to th...Figure 5.2. Map of the Goiânia airport district showing the main radioactive con...Figure 5.3. Dose rates (μSv.h-1) around the DF house located on street 15A (adap...Figure 5.4. Plan of the junkyard and its vicinities in Bangkok (Thailand) (adapt...

6 ConclusionFigure C.1. Temporal changes in the numbers of accidents and the number of nucle...

1 Cover

2 Table of Contents

3 Begin Reading

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Radioactive Risk Set

coordinated by

Jean-Claude Amiard

Volume 2

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

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UK

www.iste.co.uk

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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USA

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© 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

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 of the intensity of exposure (dose), and also of the distribution of this dose over time (absorbed dose per unit of time). The effects on organic molecules of various ionizing rays (alpha, beta, gamma, neutron emitters) are very different. In addition, the radioactive risk depends on which radionuclide is involved, or rather, on the mixture of radionuclides affecting the organism.