CERN Courier – July-August 2019

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OPINION

REVIEWS

CERN COURIER JULY/AUGUST 2019 45

Ilya Obodovskiy’s new book is the most

detailed and fundamental survey of the

subject of radiation safety that I have

ever read.

The author assumes that while none of

his readers will ever be exposed to large

doses of radiation, all of them, irrespec-

tive of gender, age, financial situation,

profession and habits, will be exposed to

low doses throughout their lives. There-

fore, he reasons, if it is not possible to

get rid of radiation in small doses, it is

necessary to study its effect on humans.

Obodovskiy adopts a broad approach.

Addressing the problem of the narrowing

of specialisations, which, he says, leads

to poor mutual understanding between

the different fields of science and indus-

try, the author uses inclusive vocabulary,

simultaneously quoting different units of

measurement, and collecting informa-

tion from atomic, molecular and nuclear

Radio-euphoria rebooted?

physics, and biochemistry and biology. I

would first, however, like to draw atten-

tion to the rather novel section ‘Quantum

laws and a living cell’.

Quite a long time after the discovery

of X-rays and radioactivity, the public

was overwhelmed by “X-ray-mania and

radio-euphoria”. But after World War

II – and particularly after the Japanese

vessel Fukuryū-Maru experienced the

radioactive fallout from a thermonuclear

explosion at Bikini Atoll – humanity

got scared. The resulting radio-phobia

determined today’s commonly negative

attitudes towards radiation, radiation

technologies and nuclear energy. In

this book Obodovskiy shows that radio-

phobia causes far greater harm to public

health and economic development than

the radiation itself.

The risks of ionising radiation can

only be clarified experimentally. The

author is quite right when he declares

that medical experiments on human

beings are ethically evil. Nevertheless,

a large group of people have received

small doses. An analysis of the effect of

radiation on these groups can offer basic

information, and the author asserts that

in most cases results show that low-dose

irradiation does not affect human health.

It is understandable that the greater

part of the book, as for any textbook, is

a kind of compilation, however, it does

discuss several quite original issues.

Here I will point out just one. To my

knowledge, Obodovskiy is the first to

draw attention to the fact that deep in

the seas, oceans and lakes, the radiation

background is two to four orders of mag-

nitude lower than elsewhere on Earth.

The author posits that one of the reasons

for the substantially higher complexity

and diversity of living organisms on

land could be the higher levels of ionis-

ing radiation.

In the last chapter the author gives

a detailed comparison of the various

sources of danger that threaten people,

such as accidents on transport, smoking,

alcohol, drugs, fires, chemicals, terror

and medical errors. Obodovskiy shows

that the direct danger to human health

from all nuclear applications in industry,

power production, medicine and research

is significantly lower than health hazards

from every non-nuclear source of danger.

Vladislav Grigoriev Moscow Engineering

Physics Institute.

M Brice/CERN-PHOTO-201501-003-9

Radiation: Fundamentals,

Applications, Risks and

Safety

By Ilya Obodovskiy

Elsevier

Handle

with care

Radiation

measurement

tools and

samples.

CCJulAug19_Reviews_v2.indd 45 27/06/2019 15:22

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