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The DARI
The latest issue of Physics Today reports (p.24-5 ) on a proposal by Richard Garwin and Nobel Laureate Georges Charpak for a new unit of radiation dose, the DARI (Dose Annuelle due aux Radiations Internes), which is the annual dose equivalent due to radioactivity in the body, mainly from K-40 and C-14 (approximately 0.17 mSv/y or 170 mrem/y).
Garwin and Charpak define 1 DARI = 0.2 mSv/y.
The report also notes by a linear effect at low radiation doses 1 DARI causes lethal cancers in 7 out of 1 million people and that a lethal cancer shortens life (presumably on a population average) by 16 years. Thus 1 DARI shortens life by one hour. Nuclear power shortens life by six minutes, and one CAT scan shortens life by 40 hours.
Hans-Georg Menzel of CERN and a member of the ICRU, is quoted as saying this approach of "distributing the life shortening effects of a fatal cancer over a large population is appealing, but not a correct use of statistics."
The French National Academy of Science has endorsed the DARI.
Rick
Richard G. Strickert, Ph.D.
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