Low Doses of Ionizing Radiation: Biological Effects and Regulatory Control
| Autor: | Dennis Woodhead |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 1999 |
| Předmět: |
Actuarial science
Operations research business.industry Control (management) Public Health Environmental and Occupational Health Context (language use) General Medicine Technical documentation Session (web analytics) Intervention (law) Relevance (law) Medicine Radiation protection Set (psychology) business Waste Management and Disposal |
| Zdroj: | Journal of Radiological Protection. 19:289-290 |
| ISSN: | 0952-4746 |
| DOI: | 10.1088/0952-4746/19/3/701 |
| Popis: | Radiological protection is concerned with the limitation of the consequential risks from exposure to ionising radiation. In recent years, there has been much debate about the validity of one of the fundamental bases of the present system for the limitation of these risks, i.e., at the low dose rates with which we are usually concerned in routine activities, the incremental increase in the risk of stochastic effects (primarily cancer) is linearly related to the additional radiation dose above that from the natural background. This is the linear, no-threshold (LNT) dose-response paradigm adopted by the ICRP in developing its recommendations. Re-analysis and interpretation of existing data, and new data on effects that may (or may not) be of relevance to cancer induction, have led to proposals for contrary supralinear, threshold and hormetic (beneficial) response relationships at low doses. It was the purpose of this conference to provide a forum to examine the latest information and debate the issues. A detailed meeting report has been given in an earlier issue of this journal (Wakeford R and Tawn E J 1998 J. Radiol. Prot. 18 52-6), and the majority of the short papers presented at the conference were issued, at that time, as an IAEA Technical Document (IAEA TECDOC-976, available free of charge from the IAEA in Vienna). This publication provides the keynote papers, summaries of the discussions and the session chairmen's summaries for each of the set of ten fora, a special session and a final round-table discussion that constituted the main body of the conference. Also included are the papers presented in two introductory background sessions that provided some context for the conference. All of the keynote papers provide, as might be expected, useful summaries of the state of the art in the respective fields. This is particularly so for the fora 8-10 that introduced the discussion of control measures and criteria for intervention, in which circumstance there is, at present, the potential for confusion (at least in the public mind) resulting from a dose limit of 1 mSv a-1 (with lower constraint values) for prospective practices, and intervention levels in the range 3-10 mSv a-1 for existing situations. The presentations from Gonzales (IAEA) and Clarke (NRPB) are useful in indicating the thinking in progress to resolve this situation (see also Clarke R 1999 J. Radiol. Prot. 19 107-15). In contrast, the discussions appear to be rather anodyne and give no real flavour of the divergent opinions and positions that might have been expected given the reasons for the convening the meeting and some of the participants present (Wakeford and Tawn also noted this point in their meeting report). There appears to have been no advance towards a resolution of the debate over the shape of the low dose-response curve that is appropriate for radiation protection. Overall, this is a useful publication - I have already referred to it for information not easily available elsewhere and expect to do so again - and it will make a helpful addition to your library. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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