K5. Dr. Alice Stewart has become a world authority on the health hazards of low-level radiation. She was the one who determined, in 1956, that a single diagnostic X ray of a pregnant woman increased the risk of cancer in the child by 50 to 100 percent. Much to her surprise, she found herself under attack by the nuclear power industry, because they had been telling the public for years that such low doses of radiation are harmless. Dr. Stewart went on to study uranium miners, Japanese A-bomb survivors, and plutonium plant workers. Her most recent work concentrated on the health effects of background radiation.
"Single-celled organisms could not exist until background radiation fell to present levels millennia ago. And it requires just as delicate an environment for us to survive. Yet today, in the arrogance of humankind, we are raising the levels of background radiation and setting back the evolutionary clock."
Birmingham Regional Cancer Registry, England. 13 September 1981.These photographs by Robert Del Tredici are protected by copyright and are available for purchase as high-quality digital prints on archival paper or as silver gelatin prints from bdeltredici@hotmail.com.