Radiation a new paradigm…Societal impacts

Latency is associated with the time lag it takes for the health effects resulting from exposure to ionising radiation to show up. However, the term latency can also be applied to the time it takes for a policy to be implemented. This length of time has been suggested as broadly 40-year process. Given that radioactivity was identified and named in 1896, three paradigms are identified and examined from 1896 to 2016 and the criteria for a 4th paradigm suggested for the period 2017–2056. The review examines the changes that have taken place in scientific understanding and in public trust, a few key developments and the associated establishment of the related organisational infrastructure designed to collate and assess the evidence.