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| Blue Light Special |
Countless examples can be found, but when this one here came to my attention I felt obligated to bring it to yours.
A research paper published in February in the journal Nature Communications claimed that people living in U.S. counties near nuclear power plants have higher cancer death rates. The authors — a Harvard doctoral student and his professor — estimated that about 115,000 extra cancer deaths occurred over a 19-year period because of proximity to these plants. When the study came out, many news outlets ran big headlines about it. But there’s a major problem with the study: the researchers never actually measured any radiation from the nuclear plants.
Eric Meyer, Founder and Executive Director of Generation Atomic, didn't just roll his eyes at this absurd assertion. Meyer assembled three real experts to dissect the study in order to see whether there was even a shred of merit in it. The investigators were Philip Hult, a nuclear engineer at Generation Atomic; DJ LeClear, a health physicist with nearly two decades of field experience; and Jim Smith, a professor of environmental science who has studied Chernobyl since 1990.
The article Meyer wrote includes the link to a YouTube video in which he interviews Hult, LeClear and Smith.
Writes Meyer, "The study uses geographic distance as a stand-in for radiation exposure. Closer to a plant means more radiation, the authors assume. Talk to anyone who actually measures this stuff for a living and the premise falls apart. DJ LeClear has spent years taking readings outside nuclear facilities, and he put it plainly: the doses are so low they’re barely detectable. The NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) puts the dose of living within 50 miles of a plant at about 0.01 millirem a year. You get the same dose from eating a banana." [EdNote: Link to U.S. NRC FAQ page.]
Here's a summary of the rest of Meyer's article in The Kernel:
Every time a scary headline about nuclear power plants and cancer pops up, the same panic happens: people hear the word “radiation” and immediately assume danger. In this faulty Harvard study the researchers never actually measured any radiation at all. They just looked at how far counties were from plants and compared cancer statistics.
That’s not a radiation study — it’s a geography study pretending to be science.
Nuclear plants are usually built near rivers, coasts, and cities for practical reasons. Those same areas also tend to have more factories, traffic, and urban stress — all things that can affect health. The study tried to account for other factors, but the experts Meyer spoke with said it’s nearly impossible to do cleanly.
Real-world evidence tells a very different story. Large, rigorous studies that actually tracked radiation doses on hundreds of thousands of nuclear workers show that the tiny amounts of radiation the public gets from normal plant operations cause virtually zero extra cancer risk.
The real danger here isn’t radiation — it’s fear itself. Scary, poorly done studies like this fuel “radiophobia,” which can hurt communities, shut down clean energy, and push us toward dirtier power sources that actually do kill people through air pollution.
Bottom line: Bad science isn’t harmless. When it attacks one of our cleanest sources of electricity without solid evidence, it becomes a public health problem in itself.
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Today I am adding radiophobia (fear of radiation) to the list of phobias I've recently written about including yesterday's story on Trypophobia.
For what it's worth, I'm wondering if we can coin a word for another phobia that seems prevalent in our time: Fear of Common Sense. If you have a suggestion, leave it in the comments. Thanks for reading.
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