Radiation, terrorism and the media.(Science)

SOME THIRTY YEARS ago I had an urgent request through my university to give scientific advice to an internationally acknowledged television drama producer. He had recently arrived in Sydney on leave from the BBC where he had achieved great success with some of the original "police soapies"--Dixon of Dock Green and Z Cars.

His script had an amazing resonance with the events and Australian newspaper headlines of the past few days such as "Nuclear Plant in Their Sights" and "Nuclear Attack in Jihad Plot". His intending nuclear terrorists were not "Muslim jihadists" but "radical greens" determined to destroy Australia's Hifar research reactor in order to terrify the residents of Sydney and to gain "green sociopolitical advantage" and to "advance environmental causes".

Opposing the villains in a tight and well-written script were the Reactor Shift Supervisor and the Commonwealth Police who eventually saved the day as well as the reactor. Ultimately the villains would lose their lives during their inglorious attempt to wreak havoc even without the aid of an "explosives belt".

Fortunately, in the end, my considered opinion that the project should not go ahead prevailed. The politics of the Cold War years could well have given rise to real atrocities in the same way as the copybook disasters perpetrated in the present age of terrorism.

A few weeks ago I was again asked for technical advice on two projects which share a common scientific thread--the impact of nuclear radiation on human beings. The substance of one project was to prepare some technical background for a well-known television current affairs team about to depart overseas to film the residual effects of physical damage and radiation impact at Chernobyl in the Ukraine, where I had been an Australian assessor in 1987. My second assignment was to critique the recently released "documentary" film Blowin' in the Wind, which purports to expose "the potentially devastating environmental and health consequences (of depleted uranium) for Australia".

For nearly twenty years the Australian media and seasoned anti-nuclear campaigners have been terrifying the nation with pseudo-science, hysteria and hype connected with the Chernobyl incident. Instead of stating that the death toll was around fifty and that the long-term adverse prognosis for life-shortening cancers might be as high as 4000, it has spun lurid stories of thousands of deaths and horrendous genetic malformations. For those seeking reality and a scientific perspective on this sad event a perusal of the Chernobyl Forum Study--published in September 2005--is mandatory.

A brief paraphrased summary of the study states "the impact was much smaller than anyone could have predicted" and now "the danger of radiation has largely passed". The report also says: