From Nuclear Bombs to Food Safety: A Personal Odyssey

Abstract

HE public attitude about irradiation of food has R improved considerably. However, reinforced by X 2 media misinformation and visions of Hiroshima, I , 5 many conjure up images of a mushroom cloud when they think of radiation. But most now consider the many benefits that properly controlled radiation brings to society. One environmental health professional has used the term "gnosophobia" to describe the disease of "fear of the unknown" or "fear of intellectual knowledge" regarding those who continue their efforts to prevent any beneficial use of radiation. Americans have a love affair with calamities and many are more eager to believe the latest alleged catastrophe of the week than the latest scientific evidence. We have learned a lot about the dangers and the benefits of radiation since the first atomic detonation at Trinity Site in New Mexico some 54 years ago. I became intimately aware of the awesome power and danger of radiation at an early date. As a Public Health Service Commissioned Officer, I monitored fall-out from nuclear devices (we were not allowed to call them bombs) at the Nevada Test Site in the I950s. I witnessed many "shots" (we did not call them explosions) both on-site and off-site. The one I best remember was Project Hood, the largest nuclear device ever detonated within the continental United States. I was standing in the darkness some ioo miles from ground zero and could have read a newspaper illuminated by the spectacular light of the fireball. In the I960s, I was assigned to monitor a peacetime underground "shot" termed Project Gnome near Carlsbad, New Mexico. This was