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Answer to Hoefert: "IARPE Newsletter - Jan/Feb 1998"
In the Newsletter (Editor's note: please see Jan/Feb 1998 CERN contribution) Dr. Hoefert asks the question: "Should we believe the statement of Dr. R. Bertell, International Institute of Concern for Public Health, Toronto, Canada, that the original ICRP dose limit of 5 rem per year for workers was forwarded before the first dose effect estimations for the victims from Hiroshima and Nagasaki had even been made?"
The answer to his question is assuredly "yes". The change from 15 rem to 5 rem in the annual whole body radiation-protection-limit to workers, promulgated by ICRP in 1956 was based on genetic and political considerations. ICRP has never publicly admitted that political considerations played any part in its decision but, remember, these were the days of Linus Pauling and widespread public concern over the health effects that might result from the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons.
In the years after 1956, as more data became available, the concerns over genetic effects diminished to be replaced by concerns over the induction of cancers. The maintenance of the whole body limit at 5 Rem per year during the time when scientific data on cancer induction were being accumulated appears to be fortuitous and based on considerations other than science.
I quote from a lecture I gave at the Medical School of Stanford University in January 1970(1):
"Genetic considerations became of increasing relevance as the results of exposure of large populations to small doses of radiation were studied. Taylor(2) reports that as early as 1933 Failla foresaw the importance of the work of Mueller this general area. By the late forties several geneticists were working with the NCRP and Charles, Mueller and Stern played an important role in the formulation of NCRP policy. There was an important realization that for genetic effects 'there might be an element of risk in the use of radiation and that, however small, the element of risk could never completely disappear.'
"Several independent studies were made in the mid-fifties, by the (US) National Academy of Sciences, NCRP, ICRP, the Medical Research Council (UK) and the United Nations, of the problems posed by occupational and population exposure. Thus by the mid-fifties, when public concern on the effects of ionizing radiations was stimulated by fall out from nuclear weapons testing the technical questions which arose had been considered and action which was apparently taken in reaction to public concern was in fact largely anticipated."
Lauriston Taylor has described the situation thus:
"As I have noted, one of the major influences on the formulation of protection philosophy developed in the mid 1950's following heavy fallout from nuclear weapons tests. The impact was felt in many phases of the radiation protection problem and the pressures that developed have compelled the introduction of restrictions many of which are felt to be unwise or unduly restrictive.
"Considerable play on the subject by the daily press developed an element of alarm among the population. Sensational writers produced a flood of distorted stories about the hazards of radiation. While these were built around certain established facts, many of the stories either neglected or played down the favorable aspects of the problem and accented only those of an alarming nature.
"Pressures on the general public by 'recognized scientific groups,' and an assortment of individuals, developed at an alarming rate. In principle, the public discussion was not necessarily bad, but actually very few of the groups have had the full facts at hand."
La plus ça change?
Ralph H. Thomas
Moraga
California
References
(1) Thomas, R. H "History of Radiation Protection Standards", Stanford
Workshops on Political Issues, 20 January 1970. RHT/Technical Note/70-3
(unpublished).
(2)Taylor, L. S. "Philosophical Influences in Radiation protection
Standards" Health Physics 11, 859 (1995).
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