ABSTRACT
Lacking any real disaster in the West, a mysterious unconfirmed disaster is conjured out of an eastern hat. If the media had really been interested in the welfare of workers in the nuclear power industry, the sensible thing would have been to obtain and to publish mortality statistics which the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority gathered over the period 1962-74. Anti-nuclear environmentalists seek to paint a disturbing picture of deeply buried nuclear waste surfacing again in the flow of water from springs and rivers. Most of the natural radioactivity which occurs all the time has no harmful effect. It is only the radioactivity occurring in a thin surface skin of soil which produces the radiation background. Although nuclear reactors have proved themselves to be exceedingly safe, very much safer than other sources of energy, in a world committed to nuclear energy, accidents would happen occasionally.
