NUCLEONICS WEEK - October 31, 2002
NUCLEAR SCIENTISTS, WORKERS SET UP
LOW-LEVEL RADIATION STUDY GROUP
An international alliance of scientists and nuclear industry
workers has united to set up a "Low Radiation International
Center" whose missions are to improve knowledge on the
health and environmental effects of low- and very-low-level
ionizing radiation and optimize working conditions in an ionizing environment.
The membership in the new group, established Oct. 7 in
Paris, is heavily weighted in favor of those who-to judge
from their past work-don't believe low-level radiation is
harmful, or believe it's even beneficial up to a point. But the
scientists are mainstream, and in many cases represent national
regulatory bodies and research centers.
President of the new center is Prof. Carmel Mothershill of
Dublin (Ireland) Institute of Technology. The Honorary Committee
of founders includes Profs. Ludwig Feinendegen (Heinrich
Heine University, Duesseldorf, Germany), Leonid Ilyin
(Institute of Biophysics, Moscow), Zbigniew Jaworowski
(Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection, Warsaw),
Tsutomu Sugahara (Japan), and Maurice Tubiana (Antoine
Beclere medical center, Paris).
The center, known as Lowrad, plans to continue a cycle
of conferences on low-level radiation that was started under
the auspices of Wonuc, the World Council of Nuclear Workers,
in 1999 at St. Quentin en Yvelines near Paris. The second
conference was held last year in Dublin. The third, according
to an announcement circulated by Wonuc, will be held Oct.
21-23, 2003 in Teheran, Iran, under the chairmanship of
Seyed Aghamiri of Shahid Beheshti University. Wonuc notes
that the region of Ramsar in Iran has the world's highest natural
background radiation level, where doses average 132 milliSievert
(13.2 rem) per year, and has been the object of "many excellent"
studies and investigations by Iranian scien-tists.
(The International Commission on Radiological Protection
recommends that doses to the public from non-background
sources be kept below 1 mSv/year, and occupational
doses to 20 mSv/year on average.)
Lowrad also is preparing the first issue of a new journal,
the International Journal of Low Radiation, which is expected
out by the end of this year. Its editorial committee is chaired
by Mothershill and includes most of the Lowrad Honorary
Committee, plus a multitude of other scientists who are mostly-
but not all-part of the international group that has
fought stricter dose limits in recent years and defended the
existence of a threshold below which radiation is not harmful,
and may in fact be beneficial.
The group plans to award a "Marie Curie Prize" annually
for the best research work dealing with low- and very-low-level
radiation and its effects, with the first laureate to be
chosen in December 2003.
It will set up an Internet site to foster discussions on low-level
radiation effects. Lowrad also intends to coordinate
bidding by its partner laboratories on research contracts let by
regional, national and international institutions, Wonuc said.
More information is available from Andre Maisseu, president
of Wonuc and editor-in-chief of the International Journal
of Low Radiation, at +331 5370 8899.
-Ann MacLachlan, Paris