Radiation standards and A-bomb survivors

Journal Article · Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 1984 · Bull. At. Sci.; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.1984.11459269· OSTI ID:6003989

Alvarez, R

For more than 33 years, the US government has supported the Life Span Study of Japanese survivors as a follow-up of the 1945 nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since 1975, the study has been funded jointly by the United States and Japan under the auspices of the Radiation Effects Research Foundation. In the May issue of this bulletin radiation epidemiologists Dr. Alice Stewart and George Kneale raise perhaps the most fundamental question of all: Does the Japanese A-bomb survivor study have any value in deriving risk estimates for low-level radiation. On the basis of data published by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in 1978, Stewart and Kneale suggest that Foundation analysts have confused long-term effects of tissue-destructive high doses with single-cell low-dose effects. If they are correct, the method of linear extrapolation from high-dose studies for low-level radiation risk estimates is invalid. The author feels the A-bomb survivors study should be opened up to an independent peer review process.

• Research Organization: Environmental Policy Inst., Washington, DC
• OSTI ID: 6003989
• Journal Information: Bull. At. Sci.; (United States), Vol. 40:8
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

63 RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTANT EFFECTS ON LIVING ORGS. AND BIOL. MAT.
59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
29 ENERGY PLANNING
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A-BOMB S
JAPAN
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ASIA
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290600 - Energy Planning & Policy- Nuclear Energy