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Nuclear Power and the Nuremburg Code

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The human subject is to "have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision." While a handful of citizens became nuclear experts by necessity over the past several decades, most of the rest of us still have problems with household appliances and electronic gadgets. Our cell phones may lead to brain tumors; we yack away regardless. We're also expected to comprehend the mostly invisible hazards of nuclear power? So goes contemporary life in what sociologist Ulrich Beck calls "risk society."

The First Directive requires that the human subject consent to "all inconveniences and hazards reasonable to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment." "Reasonable" provides the industry, its boosters and regulators an out. No one responsible for reactor safety thought what happened in Fukushima reasonable. But "possibly" broadens the possibilities. While the probability of a catastrophic nuclear event on a given day is exceedingly low (somewhere around one in a billion), today could be the day. Low probability, high stakes. Has the industry or regulators explained the symptoms of acute radiation sickness to the public?

2. The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.

While we all agree that electricity is an essential social good, we know how to generate it using non-nuclear means. The industry sees this problem as an opportunity; that's how we've come to learn of the climate change benefits of nuclear power. Entergy et al. hold out the frightening prospect of burning yet more coal to make up for the 20% of electric power provided in the US through nuclear reaction. Truly scary? Not if we act urgently on the non-esoteric knowledge that old-fashioned energy conservation (not to be confused with its contemporary manifestation, energy efficiency) is cheaper, safer and creates more jobs than energy generation.

3. The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results will justify the performance of the experiment.

Animals were used in nuclear weapons effects among other radiological experiments. Might partisans honestly differ over this directive? Do the terawatts generated by nuclear power stations over the decades justify the rare slip up? Not if you refer back to Directive Two. And not if you count the full costs of the full nuclear fuel cycle.

4. The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.

Have the countless cancers, stillbirths, and deformities been necessary? Was the half-century of angst felt, and felt again, by hundreds of millions avoidable? Perhaps not if controlled fission was the sole means by which to light a bulb, pump water, or power a computer. But it isn't.

5. No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur.

Can we forgive the hubris of engineers, physicists, lawyers, politicians, and energy policy experts who pushed atomic energy throughout the Nuclear Age? Their's may simply be a (gigantic) case of misplaced faith in what looked like, in the early days, one of the most promising technologies of all time. What of those, like US Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who still push today? Directive Five poses a high hurdle in 2011.

Is the unintentional release of radioisotopes to the toxic stew of modern life equivalent to causing death or disability? It's nearly impossible, except in extreme instances, to confidently trace complex disease etiology. There is "a priori reason" to believe that as long as nuclear reactors operate that there will be accidents.   These are what sociologist Charles Perrow calls "normal accidents" (common to highly complex technological systems tightly coupled to other such technologies). Are nuclear accidents still accidents if you know, sooner or later, that they're likely to happen?

6.   The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment.

This could be tricky if it weren't for some of the other Directives. Who's aware of the risks posed by nuclear power? Not most of us. Sure, many of us smoke, eat meat, fail to exercise, have unprotected sex, behavior far riskier than living downwind from a nuclear power plant. You take a far greater risk of death or disabling injury by driving than by atomic power generation. But we run these risks, other than driving in America, more or less voluntarily (eschewing automobility is not a viable option for one hundred or so million of us).   Who decides the degree of risk taken by keeping reactors online? Not the affected public.

7. Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of injury, disability, or death.

There's not much the state and corporation can say in their defense. As we saw with Chernobyl, and as we're seeing again with Fukushima, evacuation is the only real response to a serious nuclear accident. Run away, preferably in an orderly fashion. But that's a problem for plants like Indian Point, fifty miles up the Hudson from Manhattan. Imagine ten or more million people in cars fleeing, where to exactly? The prevailing wind is from the west, but conditions vary.

I lived in rural Bavaria when Chernobyl blew up. We fled to Bonn in a VW rental van with our small children. We were moving anyway; I first learned of the disaster while on the train back from apartment hunting in Bad Godesberg. On the seat beside me was a popular tabloid with the bold headline in giant typeface: "Russian Women's Hair Falling Out." Skeptical of what looked like Boulevardzeitung hysteria, I picked the paper up and read the cover story.

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Steve Breyman teaches peace, environmental and media studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
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