cover image The Woman Who Knew Too Much: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation

The Woman Who Knew Too Much: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation

Gayle Greene. University of Michigan Press, $35 (360pp) ISBN 978-0-472-11107-7

In 1956, British physician Alice Stewart discovered that exposing a fetus to a single diagnostic X-ray doubles the risk of an early death from cancer. As this spirited biography demonstrates, Stewart's subsequent dedication to investigating the effects of radiation turned her into a kind of guru to the antinuclear movement. In 1974-1977, her study of U.S. nuclear workers at the Hanford weapons complex in Washington State found that workers had a greater risk of developing cancer if exposed to radiation well below one-tenth of the ""safe"" level stipulated by international standards. According to Greene, the Atomic Energy Commission attempted to seize Stewart's data, and her funding was cut off. Yet her controversial findings, published in 1977, have momentous implications because, as Stewart explains, ""If we are correct, occupational safety standards will have to be changed and it will open the floodgates to claims from workers, veterans and downwinders."" Greene, a professor at Scripps College, also sets forth Stewart's provocative, still untested theory that sudden infant death syndrome masks myeloid leukemia. Stewart's varied personal life included conducting an affair with literary critic/poet William Empson, raising two children as a single parent and enduring her son's suicide. Greene calls this a ""collaborative memoir,"" because she lets Stewart, 93, speak for herself whenever possible. Yet Greene also uses this blunt, feisty woman's career to mount a compelling critique of the nuclear industry and the medical establishment. 31 b&w photos. (Jan.)