Mad Science: The Nuclear Power Experiment

Copyright 2012 by Joseph Mangano, MPH, MBA

Book Review by Sharon and Ace Hoffman, May 2025

Mad Science is a compelling read, and highly recommended for its clear explanations of data relationships and the statistical methods available to quantify low-level radiation damage.

Mangano highlights the many lies that have been used over the years to justify building and operating nuclear power plants -- edifices which produce thousands of tons of highly toxic nuclear waste that lasts for eons -- along with a few decades of very expensive electricity.

Mangano is an expert on the health impacts from nuclear power. In 1989 Mangano led a study which measured radioactivity in children's baby teeth who lived near nuclear reactors. That study was modeled after the famous 1960s Baby Tooth Survey, which helped convince President John F. Kennedy to pressure the Soviets to jointly ban above-ground testing of nuclear weapons -- a ban that has stood the test of time.

Mad Science was published in 2012, the year after the Tohoku Earthquake & Tsunami.* Mad Science begins with a synopsis of the history of nuclear power and its inextricable connection to nuclear weapons. Throughout the book, Mangano presents extensive data and statistical analysis indicating that nuclear power has never been safe, reliable, or cost-effective, and that the risks have never been properly presented to the public.

Mad Science points out that communities near reactors are continually exposed to radiation because “every reactor must routinely emit a portion of the radioactive particles and gases it produces.” (p. 25)

Additionally: “[nearly] all high level waste remains … at each nuclear plant …”. (This is still true as this review is being written (2025) and will be true for the foreseeable future.)

As a case study, Mad Science takes an in-depth look at the legacy of the troubled Santa Susana site near Los Angeles, California. Santa Susana has had multiple corporate owners but the original project was a joint venture between Atomics International and Southern California Edison (SCE). The Sodium Reactor Experiment (SRE) at Santa Susana "went critical" for the first time in April 1957 and melted down July 12, 1959. Decades later, communities near Santa Susana began questioning the many birth defects and cancers in their neighborhoods, including rare childhood cancers.

A former Santa Susana employee stated that after the SRE meltdown, film badges were taken away -- because management knew “…levels would be really high.” (pg. 106)

In contrast, company officials issued an internal report six weeks after the meltdown stating that: “…operating personnel were not exposed to harmful conditions.” (pg. 105) The internal report was shared with the Atomic Energy Commission, but was not published.

Mangano searches for the truth behind these conflicting versions of history by analyzing statistics comparing the incidence of cancer and birth defects in communities near Santa Susana with several communities with similar characteristics (populations, physical area, etc.) elsewhere in California.

Although Mad Science was published more than 10 years ago,the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission continues to extend licenses for aging nuclear power plants -- just as Mangano predicted -- and advocates of nuclear power continue to peddle the myth that nuclear power is safe.**

Mangano explores the attempt to reprocess nuclear fuel at West Valley, New York, which opened in 1966 and "failed dismally," closing just six years later and leaving behind: “…enormous amounts of used fuel assemblies, liquid waste, solid waste, and low-level waste. … West Valley remains a large, dirty burial ground for high-level nuclear waste.” (pgs. 197-198)

The history of unsuccessful experiments with sodium-cooled reactors, including Santa Susana, seems particularly prescient now, in 2025, as the nuclear industry attempts to bypass regulations and legislation by promoting Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (usually called SMRs instead of SMNRs to hide the word Nuclear) -- including sodium-cooled SMNRs -- as "safe" (they aren't), small (they aren't) and green (definitely not that either!).

Mangano's book helps uncover the many unsavory secrets of nuclear power.

Review written June, 2025 by Sharon and Ace Hoffman

In the 1990s the authors of this book review worked with Ace's father to produce a first-year interactive computerized college course on statistics (available free online). The elder Hoffman, the late Dr. Howard S. Hoffman, an experimental psychologist, had taught thousands of students statistics for nearly half a century at Pennsylvania State University and Bryn Mawr College.

The book review is available online at https://acehoffman.blogspot.com/2025/06/mad-science-nuclear-power-experiment.html

* Also known as the Great East Japan Earthquake, Tohoku is blamed for causing the triple meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan. But really, it was mankind's hubris that caused the meltdowns. Ancient stone markers in the hills behind the plant warned of the potential high height of tsunamis in the area; the signs were ignored. Whistleblowers warned that the type of reactors at Fukushima Daiichi were unsafe (General Electric Mark-1 Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs)); the whistleblowers were ignored. Warnings about the design of the Emergency Diesel Generators were ignored. Warnings about the design of the spent fuel pools, directly above the reactors themselves, were ignored. (All these problem are still ignored at nearly two dozen similar reactors in the United States.)

** Yet the reactors themselves are becoming more and more embrittled, maintenance is often lacking or inadequate, wiring diagrams have long since disappeared or don't match the current arrangement after decades of repair and reworking (such as computerizing the control room), and in all likelihood, no one working at the reactor now was even out of high school when the reactor was designed and built. How old are these reactors? Before San Onofre decided to close permanently, someone thrust a pencil through the side of the fuel tank for one of the emergency backup diesel generators. Presumably, this was NOT "terrorism" or "sabotage" it was an attempt to force repair or replacement of the badly rusted part (the reactor was not operational at the time).

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Contact information for the author of this newsletter:

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Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, California USA
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose of the Nuclear Industry
Free download: acehoffman.org
Blog: acehoffman.blogspot.com
YouTube: youtube.com/user/AceHoffman
Email: ace [at] acehoffman.org
Founder & Owner, The Animated Software Company

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