The truth will out: a reflection on the life and times of Alice Stewart

Abstract

Purpose and conclusions

Dr. Alice Stewart, 1906–2002, came from a medical background which included a strong commitment to social justice and equality. Her father became Professor of Medicine at Sheffield University and her mother was one of the first women to qualify as a doctor, and together they practiced in Hillsborough, near Sheffield. Having qualified as a doctor herself in 1932, Alice worked in London hospitals before moving to Oxford, where she became a pioneer in epidemiology. Early in her career, she showed that X-raying pregnant women was a cause of childhood leukemia. Her later work focused on the harmful effects of low-level radiation on nuclear industry workers, the role of background radiation and she went on to question the dose limits set for radiation protection. All her results were initially challenged, but subsequent studies have borne out her findings.

Conclusions

Dr Alice Stewart’s research was pioneering, fundamental and challenging, and is now widely accepted.

Keywords:

• X-rays
• low level radiation
• childhood cancer
• Hanford workers
• background radiation
• standard setting

Acknowledgements

Prof Keith Baverstock; Dr Patrick Green, Senior Nuclear Energy and Radiation Campaigner at FOE, 1985–2001; MLE Greenfield; Dr Mark Howarth, GP, Retd.; Jo Somerset and Dr Ann Stewart (not related).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Part of an interview carried out by Gayle Greene and included in her book, The Woman Who Knew Too Much, Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation. The University of Michigan, 1999; book critically reviewed Wakeford 2000.

2 Dounreay was the UK site for fast reactor research from the 1950s to 1990s. The BBC reports that the site should be available for other uses in 313 years' time.

3 1987; Dounreay expansion: the case against by Nuclear Free Zones Scotland, Glasgow (UK) 28 pp; ISBN 0 9512621 0 6; Worldcat.

4 Evidence given on behalf of an objector, Marjorie Higham, who was unable to attend.

5 Site produced plutonium for nuclear weapons.

6 Plant where the manufacture, chemical separation and purification of plutonium took place.

7 The Conference papers were published as a book, Radiation and Health: the Biological Effects of Low-level Exposure to Ionising Radiation, 1987, pub Wiley.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jill Sutcliffe

Jill Sutcliffe, MSc, PhD, become interested in radiation issues in 1971 and was able to attend the Radioactivity in the Environment course run at Imperial College, London. She supported the Low Level Radiation and Health Conference with others from 1985. She ran the Objectors’ office at the Hinkley Point Public Inquiry. Her research led to the development of an integrated approach to considering health and environmental issues. While working for English Nature, the UK government advisory body, she was able to contribute to the work on radioactivity and wildlife which led to the establishment of Working Group 5 at the ICRP.