Nuclear Neuroses

Atomic radiation is dangerous, and as the atomic age develops, the danger will increase. This is the conclusion of the National Academy of Sciences (TIME, June 25), and the public is justified in taking it seriously. But in many parts of the world, the atom is being blamed for ills that it could not have caused, and for some that do not exist.

Last week in Washington the House Military Operations Subcommittee tried to stop a panicky rumor (started by testimony at one of its hearings) about the "dangers" of luminous watch dials, light-switch markers, etc. It published a reassuring letter from Physicist Lauriston S. Taylor of the National Bureau of Standards.

Luminous watch dials, he wrote, do contain radioactive material, but the quantity "is negligibly small and constitutes no hazard to the individual . . . unless one were to eat the dial." Luminous switch markers are harmless, too, but Taylor urged moderation. "One should not fill his home with such devices unless there is real need for them."

In West Germany the Hamburger Abendblatt (circ. 310,000) prints daily reports of air radioactivity. Last week a banner headline screamed that the radioactivity of Hamburg's air had risen tenfold between July 3 and July 5. Not until the sixth paragraph did the Abendblatt's expert admit that the activity was still too low to do any damage whatever.

Atomic Headache. As a result of such scaremongering, thousands of suggestible Germans have come down with "atomic headache." The head of the Bavarian State Health Authority complained: "All the misfortune that Bavarians formerly ascribed to the Fohn (a hot Alpine wind) has now turned into the atomic head ache." The Bavarian Minister of the Interior tried to convince complaining farmers that the yellowing of their pastures had nothing to do with atomic rain. In Salzburg cafe waiters warned departing guests not to go without hats for fear of atomic rain.

In Japan, where rain is sometimes really radioactive, a new term, "radiation neurosis" (hoshano noirozeh) has been coined to express a state of extreme nervousness which affects many Japanese after U.S., Soviet and British bomb tests. In understandably jittery Hiroshima, welfare agencies publish bulletins after each rain to assure the citizens that it is not dangerous. In Osaka schoolchildren are told to wear plastic raincoats with hoods. One school held drills to teach the children how to hold their umbrellas so that their hands and faces would not get spattered. Policemen in Itami demanded plastic gloves because their service raincoats do not cover their hands.

Japanese scientists have tried to cure hoshano noirozeh by statements that the radioactive rain at its present strength will not hurt anyone. The public thinks it knows better.

In France radioactive rain has become a specialty of the Communist press, which blames almost every malaise on U.S. (but not Soviet) bomb tests. The Communist daily Liberation told how growing vegetables were yellowed, how a vineyard was burned "as if by a flame thrower," how an elderly farmer was rained on, felt a prickling sensation and turned yellow all over. French rain does occasionally show a slight amount of radioactivity, but it is never enough to do damage to humans, certainly not enough to blast the leaves off grapevines.

Atomic Weather. In nearly all parts of the world, atomic-bomb tests are blamed for unusual weather. In the U.S., for instance, an article in the Saturday Review by Dr. Irving Bengelsdorf (an organic chemist) blames bomb tests for steering hurricanes toward New England--despite the fact that there were destructive New England hurricanes in 1938 and 1944, before any bomb had been exploded.

In Germany June was uncommonly cold and wet, and a group of Bundestag Deputies formally asked the government to investigate. Other German legislators demanded an official check on the radioactivity of the ocean. In France and Italy the public has the same conviction: the weather is unprecedented; it is the bomb's fault.

No responsible physicist or meteorologist believes that atomic explosions have altered the world's weather. The Report of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences says: "No statistically significant changes in the weather during the first ten years of the Atomic Age have been found . . . Although it is not possible to prove that nuclear explosions have or have not influenced the weather, it is believed that such an effect is unlikely." British, German and Japanese scientists agree.

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