7-11 July 2019
EV91 - PEP 1I: The Fallacy of Safe-Siding Radiation Health Risk (Daxon)Lake Florence 08:00 - 10:00 |
| Health physicists live in two worlds – the regulatory world and the health risk world. At the beginning of our profession in the 1950’s, these worlds were appropriately merged in that the known health risks of radiation were used to develop a radiation safety system commensurate with that health risk belief. At this point in time, dire genetic effects were thought to be the primary health risk from radiation exposure. This led to a fear-based ethos that permeated the profession, the regulatory system and was subsequently communicated to the public at large. The discovery of the multiple DNA repair mechanisms and the wealth of subsequent data showed these initial health risk estimates to be inaccurate. The health risk aspects of health physics evolved accordingly but the regulatory and emergency response worlds did not. The continuance of the initial regulatory framework has fostered the continuance of this fear-based ethos in the profession and in the public at large. The intent of this paper is to outline the evolution of these two systems, to provide recommendations for bringing congruence and to outline the major roadblocks to the needed changes. Specific objectives include: · Identify the origins of the culture of safe-siding risks. · Describe the impacts of safe-siding radiation health risk assessments/dose assessments on individuals and populations. · Present methodologies that can provide bests estimates of total health risk and communicate those risks. |
