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Kevin Mulhern interviews 79-year-old Doctor Alice Stewart who works at the University of Birmingham. She is an authority on radiation and cancer and has long warned that even small doses of radiation can cause cancer or death.
We open with Dr Stewart talking about the risks of x-rays and archive film of the mass radiography of a group of factory workers. A series of newspaper articles show how Dr Stewart warned of the dangers from the 1950s onwards. B/w stills of her are also used. Her research into x-rays and leukaemia now means that very few pregnant women receive x-rays. We see shots of a person undergoing an x-ray. She has also studied the effects of exposure to radiation on workers in the nuclear industry and the effect of the nuclear industry on the country’s natural background radiation. We see workers in a nuclear plant and extracts from the television documentary ‘Acceptable Risk’ (John Gau Productions for C4) who shows the contamination of the town of Cunningsburgh in Pennsylvania, USA caused by radiation left behind by the Manhattan Project. This is followed by archive footage of atom bomb testing in Nevada and the aftermath of the 1945 atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in Japan which leads into shots from a Japanese documentary (supplied by NHK) that looked at the on-going effects for the survivors of the Japanese attacks.
We then consider another documentary called Windscale: The Nuclear Laundry that was made by Yorkshire Television in 1983 about the rise in cancer rates close to the nuclear reactor in Cumbria that is now known as Sellafield. Despite a subsequent Government report clearing Sellafield Dr Stewart is convinced that the effects of low-level radiation have been underestimated and she continues to explain her findings and thoughts on the subject. Further newspaper articles and shown to back up her arguments.
Interviewed by Kevin Mulhern
Thanks to NHK International TV, Japan
Cameraman: Bob Bolt
Sound: Phil Middleham
Graphic Design: Stuart Kettle
Production Assistant: Patsy Wood
Film Research: Pam Edwards; Phil Crossley
Dubbing Mixer: Richard King
Film Editor: David Furmage
Assistant: Martin Weinberg
Executive Producer: Brian Lewis
Produced and Directed by Vivica Parsons
Production number 6735/85. Billed under the series title of Central Week for its first transmission and then as an episode of Eco for a repeat in 1986.