RADIATION
and
RISK
Bulletin of
the National
Radiation and
Epidemiological
Massachusetts
Moscow
Cambridge
Obninsk
2004
ISSN
0131-3878
English Translation by
scientists
in Obninsk
Edited by Richard Wilson,
Harvard
University
Nr Moscow, Russia
Cambridge, MA
02138,USA
Editor - in - Chief
A.F.Tsyb
Academician of RAMS;
Chairman, All-Russia Scientific Commission on
Radiation
Protection; Director, Medical
Radiological Research Center of RAMS
(Obninsk)
Deputy Editor
V.K.Ivanov
Corr.
Member of RAMS; Deputy Chairman, All-Russia Scientific Commission
on Radiation Protection;
Deputy Director, Medical Radiological Research Center of RAMS (Obninsk)
Editorial Coordinator
V.A.Sokolov
Cand. Sc., Biology
Analytical group of special issue
Cand. Sc.,
Tech.
A.I. Gorski
Cand. Sc.,
Tech.
M.A. Maksioutov
D. Sc., Tech.
O.K. Vlasov
Cand. Sc.,
Phys.-Math.
O.V.
Kaidalov
in
cooperation with
SPC "Medinfo".
ISSN
0131-3878
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English Translation:
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Risk",
c/o
Richard Wilson
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Harvard
University, Lyman 435
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Contents
an
example of the Leningrad NPP....................................................................(MSWORD or PDF copy for download)
Preface
to English Translation
Mankind has been exposed to
radiation from time immemorial and has been
exposed to man made radiation for over 100 years.
Some adverse effects on health of man made X
rays were found very quickly; high
exposures received in a short period of time (acute exposures)
destroyed
tissue, and if over large parts of the body proved to be
fatal.
Smaller exposures over a longer period of time (chronic
exposures) were
later found to produce disease – primarily cancer.
Starting in 1928, the International
Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) made its landmark
pronouncement
that no one should be subjected to radiation without expectation of
some
benefit. The interpretation of
this
has occupied the Radiation Protection community, and the public, ever
since.
Since
the cancers produced by radiation are indistinguishable (to a
patholologist) from naturally occurring (sporadic or spontaneous)
cancers, it
has been assumed (following Taylor's theorem) that even small exposures
produce
an effect – increase in cancer rate – proportional to the dose. The most important data so far on the
coefficients relating cancer rate to dose (as a function of age, sex,
etc) are
from the studies of cancer among 50,000 survivors of the atomic bombs
dropped
in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These
were
single high, but sublethal, doses. They
are modified by a Dose Rate Effectiveness Factor (DREF) believed to be
about 2
based on experiments in animals.
Whereas
in the 1920s and 1930s radiation protection concentrated on
avoiding individual high doses – high meaning 10 times natural
background – ICRP
suggested that a «collective dose» criterion be used – the integral of
the dose
over the population. Using the
assumption of linearity, a prediction can be made of the total number
of
cancers that are produced – even if they cannot be seen due to
statistical
fluctuations in the background. The
Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the USA proposed that radiation doses
be
reduced if the cost is no more than $200,000 per person-Sv. (about $5,000,000 per calculated
cancer). This concept is being
extended
in another situation for another pollutant (arsenic) by the US EPA
who use a figure of $5,600,000 per
statistical
life.
ICRP
is now modifying the collective dose policy to address individual risks to a greater
extent than recently. These papers
are
starting a discussion of how this would apply for workers
at
Russian nuclear installations.
This is an important discussion and all members of society must
be
involved. How much extra
medical care
should a worker receive when his calculated risk is 10% greater as a
result of
his radiation exposure? Simple
arithmetic suggests that the nuclear installation should add 10% to the
costs
the worker or society would otherwise pay for cancer care.
Is this correct? Or is there another logical suggestion of what
to do?
If a person with an attributive risk of
10% of the risk due to natural causes, dies of a cancer the risk
becomes unity
and we then discuss the Probability of Causation which becomes 10%. Is that enough for his family to
receive
compensation and if so how much compensation? In
the USA the rule in toxic tort cases is that it be «more likely than
not» that
the postulated cause (radiation) is the actual cause (Probability of
Causation
greater than 50%) and but there have been specific cases (such as
persons
downwind of atomic bomb tests) where the US Congress has been more
generous. On another aspect, there
have been many academic discourses, but no public agreement, suggesting that compensation be paid
proportional to the Probability of Causation.
These
issues are not unique to radiation, because cancer is not uniquely
caused by radiation exposure and low dose linearity applies to many
chemical
expsoures also. The issues are
therefore far broader than ICRP and should be, and hopefully will be,
widely
discussed not only in the Radiation Protection Community (as in these
papers)
but also in the acdemic community, the legal community, the government
community and the general public. Not
only in Russia, but in the whole world.
This set of papers is an important start.