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Radiological Stress Victims



    Let me try to tie together two strings; radiological stress and "victims". I have a friend who is both an anti-nuke and a psychiatrist. A major reason for his attitude toward anything radioactive is that, in his practice, he has seen several patients who harbor morbid fears of atom bombs and  all things that might be related. They continually worry about how they and their loved ones are being affected by radioactivity. They often manifest their deep-seated concerns by strongly opposing nuclear arms, nuclear power, food irradiation, or anything that might involve radioactivity. For some unexplained reason, neither  medical applications of radiation, nor natural background radiation seem to fall within this category.   
     When I tried to explain, from a scientific standpoint, that such fears were largely irrational and  unfounded, his response was interesting. He claims that the scientific realities are irrelevant when dealing with psychological conditions, and that we need to understand that the lives of radiophobic people have been seriously degraded, many to the point of mental illness by the mere existence of nuclear programs of any sort.  His solution would be to eliminate such programs.
    I tried to counter his argument by pointing out that racial and religious prejudice and fears have a similar irrational basis, and that people often have deep-seated fears of others who may be different from them even though such fears may have no rational basis. He said this was ridiculous and that racial/religious biases are something altogether different. We agreed to disagree.
    In any case, radiological stress is apparently quite real, and affects many people who have never been anywhere near Hiroshima. Shouldn't all these "victims" be compensated for their lives having been degraded?