91Èȱ¬

For the last 50 years the world has lived in fear of radiation. Hiroshima, Nagasaki and accidents at nuclear power stations struck terror in people everywhere - but Horizon: Nuclear Nightmares has uncovered evidence to suggest these fears could be unfounded.

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Horizon: Nuclear Nightmares (91Èȱ¬ TWO, Thursday 13 July 2006) speaks to a number of scientists who are asking whether we need to think again about the dangers of radiation as there is evidence to suggest that there is a threshold below which radiation may be harmless - or even beneficial.

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The programme examines in detail the aftermath of the ultimate nuclear nightmare - the explosion and fire 20 years ago at Chernobyl Reactor number four.

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The results of the investigation are astonishing. In the aftermath of Chernobyl experts predicted tens of thousands of deaths from cancer.

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Yet, when the authoritative UN Chernobyl Forum report - compiled by scientists from organisations such as the WHO - was published late last year it put the total death toll from the accident at just 59.

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Fifty workers in the plant died from acute radiation sickness and so far only nine cases of cancer can be attributed to the accident.

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This is a huge discrepancy between prediction and reality.

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Those predictions were based on a theory called the Linear no threshold (LNT) model.

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This model was derived by studying the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who received huge radiation doses; yet there is almost no data to support the model at the sort of levels of radiation exposure caused by Chernobyl.

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The LNT model is, the experts admit, little more than an informed guess.

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Horizon's investigation has turned up evidence to suggest that there is a threshold below which radiation may be harmless.

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There are many places on Earth where the natural background radiation is tens or even hundreds of times higher than in the Chernobyl exclusion zone.

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Yet studies of populations who live in these natural radiation hot spots have consistently failed to find any negative health consequences.

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The programme also reports on the scientific experiments that suggest that a little radiation may even protect against cancer by stimulating the body's natural cancer defences. These ideas are controversial.

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What is accepted by all the experts Horizon talked to is that for the victims of Chernobyl the real problem is not radiation - but radiophobia, the fear of radiation, which has caused acute psychological trauma.

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Could we all find ourselves victims of radiophobia, as we fight shy of a technology which may be vital in the fight to save our civilisation from the effects of global warming?

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Horizon: Nuclear Nightmares, Thursday 13 July 2006, 91Èȱ¬ TWO, 9.00pm

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