Do you know of any good books on the medical effects of ionizing radiation? I have a bit of a morbid obsession with nuclear accidents like those at Chernobyl and Fukashima and would like to hear any suggestions you might have.

Do you know of any good books on the medical effects of ionizing radiation? I have a bit of a morbid obsession with nuclear accidents like those at Chernobyl and Fukashima and would like to hear any suggestions you might have. — Asked by vergiliusmaro

Nnnoooo…not off the top of my head, at least…I mean, almost everything I have thinks shit like this is just the best idea ever:

I actually find the subject really interesting on a cellular and molecular level, but I don’t know of any good *books* on it that aren’t incredibly focused on “Nuclear power is evil blah blah blah not ionizing radiation things blah”.

For the general scientific side of things (including accident dynamics), I’ve always found the IAEA Publications website helpful. For more radiation/medicine-based stuff, the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation and Radiation Emergency Medical Management are worth checking out. REMM has a lot of really good images and explanations if you like the weird medical effects radiation has.

If you’re into radiological accidents, shit like the THERAC-25, Clinic of Zaragoza, and the poorly-reported Costa Rica incident are really interesting. THERAC-25 in particular managed to freak me out when I first read about it a while back. The Goiânia Incident is a good example of why looting old medical clinics is probably a bad idea, no matter how much scrap metal might be in them.