Creager, Angela N. H. (Author)
University of Chicago Press
Publication date: 2013
Language: English
Physical Details: 512 pp.; ill.
After World War II, the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) began mass-producing radioisotopes, sending out nearly 64,000 shipments of radioactive materials to scientists and physicians by 1955. Even as the atomic bomb became the focus of Cold War anxiety, radioisotopes represented the government's efforts to harness the power of the atom for peace---advancing medicine, domestic energy, and foreign relations. In Life Atomic, Angela N. H. Creager tells the story of how these radioisotopes, which were simultaneously scientific tools and political icons, transformed biomedicine and ecology. Government-produced radioisotopes provided physicians with new tools for diagnosis and therapy, specifically cancer therapy, and enabled biologists to trace molecular transformations. Yet the government's attempt to present radioisotopes as marvelous dividends of the atomic age was undercut in the 1950s by the fallout debates, as scientists and citizens recognized the hazards of low-level radiation. Creager reveals that growing consciousness of the danger of radioactivity did not reduce the demand for radioisotopes at hospitals and laboratories, but it did change their popular representation from a therapeutic agent to an environmental poison. She then demonstrates how, by the late twentieth century, public fear of radioactivity overshadowed any appreciation of the positive consequences of the AEC's provision of radioisotopes for research and medicine.
...MoreReview Dmitriy Myelnikov (2016) Review of "Radium and the Secret of Life". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (pp. 124-127).
Review Robert Bud (2015) Review of "Life Atomic: A History of Radioisotopes in Science and Medicine". Social History of Medicine (pp. 654-655).
Review Ilana Löwy (2015) Review of "Life Atomic: A History of Radioisotopes in Science and Medicine". History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences (p. 484).
Review Stevens, Hallam (2014) Review of "Life Atomic: A History of Radioisotopes in Science and Medicine". Journal of the History of Biology (pp. 177-179).
Review Campos, Luis A. (2015) Review of "Life Atomic: A History of Radioisotopes in Science and Medicine". Bulletin of the History of Medicine (pp. 154-155).
Review Santesmases, María Jesús (2015) Review of "Life Atomic: A History of Radioisotopes in Science and Medicine". Dynamis: Acta Hispanica ad Medicinae Scientiarumque Historiam Illustrandam (pp. 250-255).
Review Lavine, Matthew (2014) Review of "Life Atomic: A History of Radioisotopes in Science and Medicine". American Historical Review (pp. 1290-1291).
Essay Review Hogan, Andrew J. (2015) Tracing Postwar Biomedicine. Metascience: An International Review Journal for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (pp. 163-165).
Review Kroker, Kenton (2015) Review of "Life Atomic: A History of Radioisotopes in Science and Medicine". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 221-222).
Essay Review Herran, Néstor (2014) Nuclear Markets, Nuclear Bodies. Ambix: Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (pp. 407-410).
Review Capocci, Mauro (2015) Review of "Life Atomic: A History of Radioisotopes in Science and Medicine". British Journal for the History of Science (pp. 712-713).
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