NYT 8Jan00: Harald Hermann Rossi, 82, Innovator in Use of Radiation

[Muckerheide <muckerheide@mediaone.net>]

(ascii version)

Friends,

This is a great loss. Harald's recent work clearly documented hormesis
effects in the comprehensive evidence of credible epidemiology,
supported by the knowledge of biological responses in "whole" cells
and organisms. As recently as the Airlie Conference the rad
protectionist leadership ignored his recent Editorial in Rad
Protection Dosimetry showing clear positive responses at low-moderate doses.

This followed his heroic effort of 20 years ago in BEIR III to move
radiation protection policies closer to radiation health effects
science (an effort completely undermined and reversed without
foundation by BEIR V, indeed with even greater confirmatory evidence
and commitments to suppressed and misrepresent that evidence, than
existed at the time of BEIR III). 

However, the impression given by this obituary is that he was a major
contributor to documenting and supporting ever more extreme radiation
protection. This seems a terrible disservice to a great and honorable
scientist. 

The fight between credible science and the self-serving policies of
the bureaucrats, their funded "scientist" minions, and those who
profit by this campaign to defraud the public, to fabricate public
fear and political support for ever more costly/profitable standards,
has suffered another great set back. 

Perhaps in honor of Dr. Rossi there will be some voices raised to call
attention to the credible results he has produced, with special
consideration of his recent work, along with obtaining some stronger
interest and initiative by the political and industry leaders that
have not yet undertaken this case on.

For our RSH mission to bring honesty into radiation health effects
science and policy, his personal encouragement and support will be
greatly missed.


Regards, Jim Muckerheide
Radiation, Science, and Health
==============================

New York Times, January 8, 2000

 Harald Hermann Rossi, 82, Innovator in Use of Radiation

 By WOLFGANG SAXON

      r. Harald Hermann Rossi, a biophysicist who improved the     
ability to measure minute amounts of ionizing radiation and      their
effects on living things, died Jan. 1 at his home in Upper Nyack, N.Y.
He was 82. 

 While he was active professionally until his death, he had been
suffering from heart disease, his family said. 

 Dr. Rossi formally retired as a professor of radiation oncology at
the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in 1987
and took emeritus status. 

 He had joined the department of radiological research at
Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital as a research scientist in 1946. 

 Dr. Rossi left his mark by developing what became known as
microdosimetry, a technique he explained in 1959 in the Journal of
Radiation Research with his paper "Specification of Radiation
Quality." It provided the scientific underpinnings for the measurement
of radiation, a topic that continues to generate international
conferences and intense research the world over. 

 Microdosimetry measures the microscopic distributions of energy for
different types of radiation. Those measurements are important factors
in radiation therapy and radiation protection. Dr. Rossi refined the
field while working as a physicist and as the radiation-protection
officer at Presbyterian from 1954 to 1960. 

 In a later paper, "Theory of Dual Radiation Action," written with Dr.
Albrecht M. Kellerer, Dr. Rossi advanced the understanding of the
biological impact of different types of densely ionizing radiation,
particularly neutrons. The paper also brought about stricter
regulations for protection against such radiation and an international
effort, completed in 1986, to reassess the amounts of radiation
absorbed by survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945. 

 Dr. Rossi designed many instruments now used in radiation
measurement. Among them was a proportional counter, known as the Rossi
counter, which measures the energy deposited by radiation in
microscopic sites like cells. 

 Harald Rossi, a native of Vienna, studied at the University of Vienna
and the University of Bristol, England, before coming to the United
States in 1939. He completed his doctorate in physics at Johns Hopkins
in 1942. 

 He remained on the faculty there until 1945, but during World War II
he was assigned to the Manhattan Project. Working for the Army Corps
of Engineers, he began to devise new measurements of radiation. 

 Dr. Rossi is survived by his wife of 53 years, Ruth Marguerite Gregg
Rossi; their son, Gerald, of Ridgewood, N.J.; two daughters, Dr.
Gwendolyn R. Gladstone of Exeter, N.H., and Harriet R. Furey of
Wappingers Falls, N.Y.; and seven grandchildren.
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