Reconstructing the Linear No-Threshold Model in Japan: A Historical Perspective on the Technics of Evaluating Radiation Exposure.

The 2011 nuclear power plant disaster and subsequent medical surveys of citizens in Fukushima Prefecture have helped reopen questions about competing models' effects of long-term, low-dose radiation exposure on human health. A reconstruction of how Japanese scientists studied low-dose effects of radiation in the years following the 1954 Castle Bravo detonation can deepen understandings as to why questions about the reliability of such risk analysis tools persist. Greater attention to the hopes associated with local research contributions to building international safety standards can begin to shed historical light upon how different technics of evaluating radiation effects have allowed scientists to envision either uncertain or certain futures in Japan with respect to radiation.