Radiophobia is the irrational fear of ionizing radiation. It’s been officially recognized as a psychological disorder since the 1950s, and most Americans labor under its burden. Their pocketbooks also suffer from its effects, for to this day it holds sway over nuclear regulation in the United States and in many countries around the world. Embodied in the linear no-threshold (LNT) dose-response model – adopted by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1956 – this pervasive radiophobia keeps the nuclear industry stymied, and our nation is quickly losing ground to the likes of Russia and China as a result.
Jeffrey Mahn is a retired nuclear engineer and current volunteer educator at the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In this interview with The New American magazine, he discusses the problem of radiophobia and how it can be overcome to lead us to energy independence.
