RiskWorld Home Page Radiation Risk and Ethics by Zbigniew Jaworowski* (Reprinted with permission from Physics Today, 52(9), September 1999, pp. 24-29, American Institute of Physics.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The established worldwide practice of protecting people from radiation costs hundreds of billions of dollars a year to implement and may well determine the world's future energy system. But is it right? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The psychosomatic disorders observed in the 15 million people in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia1 who were affected by the April 1986 Chernobyl accident are probably the accident’s most important effect on public health.2 These disorders could not be attributed to the...