Abstract

This article analyzes the forms of scientific counter-expertise that developed in the field of radiation protection between the Seventies and the Eighties. Starting in the early Seventies, a growing number of scientists began examining the effects radioactive emissions had on people’s health. Through a series of studies carried out mostly in the United States, they highlighted the increase in the number of cancer cases among people living close to nuclear industrial facilities and challenged existing regulatory requirements, arguing that there was no safe threshold for radiation exposure. Their work was widely disseminated in the aftermath of the Three Mile Island accident of 1979, when scientists became more fully engaged in public and political debates about the health and environmental effects of nuclear installations. As antinuclear and environmental movements spread across the United States and Western Europe, American studies were translated into different languages and discussed among scientists, political activists and citizens on the two sides of the Atlantic. The article devotes particular attention to the study of Italian «scientific environmentalism», which drew on and established connections with American and European scientists to challenge the government’s decision to build dozens of nuclear power plants across the country. In the first half of the Eighties, and especially in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster, scientists increasingly defined themselves as counter-experts and mobilized their knowledge, expertise, and networks to pressure national and international institutions to improve their legislation on radiation protection and nuclear safety.