Some scientific landmarks of the MIT radium toxicity studies
- Constantine Maletskos, Gloucester, MA (United States)
Until the recent forced termination of the studies on radium toxicity, more than six decades of investigation and research have been devoted to them. These studies involve {approximately}2400 subjects who were exposed to long-term internally deposited radium [high linear energy transfer (LET)], whose health status was evaluated in great detail and whose radiation dosimetry was based on measurements of their actual radium body burdens. The quality and usefulness of these studies are, therefore, in sharp contrast to other human radiation-exposure studies that involve instantaneous or somewhat protracted external low-LET exposures and inferred radiation dose, as in the atomic-bomb survivor studies. As a consequence of national news in 1932 concerning the gruesome death of a prominent Pittsburgh businessman and sportsman, Robley D. Evans became involved with radium toxicity, and its study became an important project when he joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology physics department and set up the interdisciplinary Radioactivity Center.
- OSTI ID:
- 426565
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-961103-; ISSN 0003-018X; TRN: 96:006307-0297
- Journal Information:
- Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Vol. 75; Conference: Winter meeting of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) and the European Nuclear Society (ENS), Washington, DC (United States), 10-14 Nov 1996; Other Information: PBD: 1996
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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