The present review volume not only covers a wide range of topics pertinent
to nuclear science and technology, but has attracted a distinguished international
authorship, for which the editors are grateful. The opening review by Drs. Janet
Tawn and Richard Wakeford addresses the difficult matter of questioning scientific
hypotheses in a court of law. The United Kingdom experienced a substantial
nuclear accident in the 1950s in the form of the Windscale Pile fire. This in itself
had both good and bad consequences; the setting up of a licensing authority to
ensure nuclear safety was one, the understandable public sentiment concerning
nuclear power (despite the fire occurring in a weapons pile) the other. Windscale
today is subsumed in the reprocessing plant at Sellafield operated by British
Nuclear Fuels plc and it was inevitable perhaps that when an excess cluster of
childhood leukaemia was observed in the nearby village of Seascale that public
concern should be promoted by the media, leading to the hearing of a claim of
compensation brought on behalf of two of the families of BNFLs workers who
had suffered that loss. The review article demonstrates the complexity of understanding
such a claim against the statistical fluctuations inherent and shows how
the courts were persuaded of the need to propose a biological mechanism if
responsibility were to be held. The Company were undoubtedly relieved by the
finding. At the same time, the concerns raised led to a deeper understanding of
such matters which our authors summarise admirably