Public health considerations of the biological effects of small doses of medical radiation
In health physics in the healing arts. Public health concerns regarding exposure of human populations to manmade radiations resulting from medical applications, such as diagnostic and therapeutic radiology and nuclear medicine, and industrial applications, such as nuclear power plant installations. have received considerable attention. Information on levels of environmental and medical radiation exposure received by the population at present, as well as projected exposure in the future, is reasonably well known and approaches to estimating the attendant risk to the individual and to the human population in general, and efforts to put the potential hazards from radiation exposure to low levels of dosage in context, can help place the concerns of radiation hazards to the public health in proper perspective. For example, it would appear appropriate to compare population exposure from nuclear reactors to that from other well-known sources for generating power, such as fossil fuel plants, or to compare the degree of potential attendant radiation risk with those of other risks encountered in everyday life, perhaps illness or injury. Such comparisons must help us understand the significance of the application and widespread use of new technological developments in our society which must be determined before their social impact can be properly assessed, and before society considers any adjustment of benefit-versus-cost relations to be indicated. The present basis of radiation protection of the health of the public in the United States is essentially the establishment of upper limits for individual and population exposure, and to provide dose-limiting recommendations and guidance for special cases. This implies that any biological risks both to the individual and to the population are offset by commensurate benefits, most frequently to society. Further, the implications are that these risks are kept as low as practicable; that is. the radiation exposure is to be kept at the lowest practicable level, assuming a no-threshold dose-effect relationship obtains. Data on the biological effects of irradiation on man and experimental mammals are reviewed in relationship to age. dose, and pathological effects manifested as a function of time. (CH)
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Connecticut, Farmington; Food and Drug Administration, Rockville, Md. (USA)
- NSA Number:
- NSA-29-029717
- OSTI ID:
- 4311338
- Report Number(s):
- FDA--73-8029
- Country of Publication:
- Country unknown/Code not available
- Language:
- English
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BIOMEDICAL RADIOGRAPHY
COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS
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IONIZING RADIATIONS
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NUCLEAR MEDICINE
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS
RADIOTHERAPY