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RE: What is Safe
>If I am not mistaken, LNT was also put forth at the tripartite
conference
>held at Chalk River (1949) to draft the first version of what was to
>eventually become ICRP #1.
Some of the precursor discussions were held by Paul S. Henshaw in
"Radiology", Vol. 44, 1945:569-580 and by
Rolf Sievert, Brit. J. Radiol., Vol. XX (No. 236), 1947:306-318.
The name Taylor may also have been involved in the discussion around
1947.
I read these works in 1975 but cannot recall details (I don't have them
available at this moment of writing) but my memory tells me that 1947
may have been a key year in the LNT history (20 years after Muller's
Drosophila experiments with X-rays). What Sievert showed in 1947 was
information regarding dose rates and I remember that he stated that
nothing could be deduced regarding genetic risks for humans at low
radiation doses.
It was probably about that time when a case was brought up where a man
had got his toes irradiated with high doses (at least 100 Sv - perhaps
several hundred Sv) of X-rays but over a period of 20 years or so.
Eventually erythema developed. This man was sitting next to an X-ray
equipped room with a lead shield in the wall but the lead didn't cover
the wall all the way down to the floor. The man in question had some
working desk in this next room. I think this contributed to the
discussion about LNT. I cannot remember the litterature source for this
particular case - it may have been brought up by Rolf Sievert in the
late 1940:ies. Please complete the story if anyone knows more of details
or anything needs to be corrected in my description above.
bjorn_cedervall@hotmail.com
Depts. Medical Radiation Biology & Medical Radiation Physics,
Karolinska Institutet, Box 260, S-171 76 Stockholm, Sweden
Any opinions expressed above are those of mine and may not necessarily
coincide with those of others.
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