Current News Archive

29 January 2020
Decide for Yourself! – March Health Physics Journal

Brant Ulsh, CHP, PhD, Health Physics Editor in Chief

The March issue of Health Physics presents Proceedings of the Joint American Nuclear Society and Health Physics Society Conference: Applicability of Radiation-Response Models to Low-Dose Protection Standards, which was held in Pasco, Washington, in October 2018. As Tony Brooks and colleagues describe in their introductory article, this conference was the latest meeting focused on this topic, and it follows the 1998 Wingspread Conference, the 2000 Arlie Conference, and the 2011 and 2016 Victor Bond Conferences. Why so many conferences on low-dose radiation? Well, because radiation protection professionals continue to be acutely interested in the topic. Three of the journal's most frequently accessed 2019 articles dealt low-dose radiation effects:

  1. "Linear No-Threshold (LNT) vs. Hormesis: Paradigms, Assumptions, and Mathematical Conventions That Bias the Conclusions in Favor of LNT and Against Hormesis" by Sacks and Meyerson.
  2. "Towards a New Concept of Low Dose" by Mothersill and colleagues.
  3. "Reflections on Basic Science Studies Involving Low Doses of Ionizing Radiation" by Paunescu and Woloschak.

There is an ongoing and vigorous discussion of low-dose radiation effects and radiation protection strategies to appropriately deal with them. Glines and Feinendegen observed that the conference attendees fell roughly into three groups:

  1. The first and oldest group holds the LNT model to be unconditionally best for the practice of radiation protection.
  2. The second group judged the risks of any health effects from low doses and low dose rates to be negligibly small, supporting the abandonment of the LNT model in favor of a threshold model.
  3. The third group focused on recent cell biology data and advocated for integrating all response patterns in system elements into a holistic system response.

Which, if any, of these views do you find compelling? Read through the March issue of Health Physics to get the best respective arguments and decide for yourself!