News Archive

John Cardarelli, HPS President, 2021–2023

Thank you for letting me serve as your Health Physics Society (HPS) president for the last two years. I want to take this opportunity to thank the many volunteers serving on our 22 committees, 21 sections, and 39 chapters. It is your personal contributions that make our Society one of the largest and strongest radiation protection societies in the world. We accomplished many things and encountered challenges that could affect the future direction of our profession and our Society.

I ran on three initiatives: focusing on a pro-science platform, membership, and strategic planning. Our first-year accomplishments were discussed in the July 2022 edition of Health Physics News. These included:

1. Holding the first International Radiation Protection Association North American Regional Congress in St. Louis.
2. Developing a webinar series in collaboration with Suriname.
3. Creating a policy for how the Society should make public statements on nontechnical issues.
4. Publishing the pros and cons of regulating extravasation in the Health Physics Journal.
5. Collaborating with the American Nuclear Society to coordinate consistent messaging on nuclear issues.
6. Completing another Science Teacher Workshop.
7. Producing a video documentary series on the "History of the Linear No-Threshold Model" (LNT).

Our second year was just as productive as the first. We:

1. Conducted a very successful internal dosimetry workshop on the campus of Oregon State University.
2. Reorganized and established the Continuing Education Programs Committee, which combined the activities of the Continuing Education Committee and the Professional Development School.
3. Continued our weekly calls with the HPS Secretariat and Executive Committee members to strengthen our operational efficiencies.
4. Conducted two visits to Capitol Hill to promote the Society's activities and relevance to the field of radiation protection.
5. Created a task force that developed a questionnaire to gauge our members' interest in and views on the LNT video documentary.
6. Created a new 501(c)(3) organization within the Society called "Health Physics Academic and Education Research Center" (HPAERC).
7. Created a new "Professional Ethics and Standards Committee," which addressed the diversity, equity, and inclusion concerns that arose at the beginning of my tenure.
8. Increased the total number of members for the first time in over a decade!
9. Initiated several activities that will carry over into the next HPS administration. These include a complete overhaul and upgrade to our website, an update of the contract and statement of work for our Secretariat to account for lessons learned during Covid, and drafting a memorandum of understanding with the American Academy of Health Physics to clarify and strengthen our respective roles between our closely related organizations.

Member Survey on the "History of the LNT Model" video documentary: This documentary is a product of the HPS. Some on the Board disagree with that statement and several were displeased with the content. In response, the Board created a Task force that reported to them. They charged this committee to assess the videos, and the first action was to survey the entire membership. The survey was open for a month, and we sent out weekly reminders; 275 HPS members participated (we have about 2,600 voting members). The response rate is consistent with our past election participation rates. There were 10 questions. I'm sharing the preliminary results for a couple of questions:

Should the Scientific and Public Issues Committee work towards development of an official Position Statement on The Continued Use of the LNT as the Basis of Radiation Protection Policy and Regulations?

243 of 275 participants responded and 48 said "No"; 194 said "Yes"; and 93 provided additional comments. Eighty percent are in favor of developing a position statement on this topic. This a clear majority—in fact, a supermajority—of the members voting who want action on this topic.

Do you think the History of the LNT video series was a professional production?

245 of 275 participants responded and 31 said "No"; 214 said "Yes"; and 97 provided additional comments. Eighty-seven percent expressed their opinion that these were a professional product. Ironically, emails by several former and current Board members stated that they couldn't make it through a single video or characterized them as "low quality junk." They fall within the minority opinion. The task force is reviewing the entire survey results and associated comments but any member can access the raw results here.

HPAERC: This new nonprofit entity took two years to create and will become a major player in the academic and research community. The purpose of the HPAERC (the "Corporation") is to raise and disburse funds in the form of scholarships, fellowships, faculty development grants, and research grants to worthy students and institutions that are engaged in training students to become employed as health physicists and radiation protection specialists. It has no members but will be controlled by a separate Board of Directors to exercise general management and control of the business affairs. This volunteer Board will have specific responsibilities including:

1. To promote the charitable purpose and philosophy of the Corporation.
2. To establish fundraising and disbursement policies and procedures.
3. To adopt policies for financial management practices, including solicitation and acceptance of funds, development of disbursement policies, managing an annual independent audit, a system to assure accountability for corporate resources, approval of the annual corporate budget, corporate priorities, strategic planning, eligibility for services, and long-range financial planning.
4. To select and to remove the chief executive officer (the "CEO") who shall be the chair of the Board.
5. To assure that the Corporation is operated in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local laws and regulations.
6. To adopt policies, including, without limitation, the scope and availability of funding provided to recipients.
7. To review, recommend, and approve the annual operating budgets and out-of-budget expenditures.
8. To appoint a Procedures Committee, composed of members in good standing of the HPS and which committee shall develop and publish procedures and rules for application for grants and scholarships, evaluation of grant proposals, and amounts of grants and scholarships.
9. To approve the rules and procedures developed by the Procedures Committee.

This is a game-changer for the Society. The HPS will now be able to raise funds, compete for grants, and distribute funds that focus on the specific development of future health physicists, radiation technicians, and other related health physics fields. This is a new territory for the HPS and the beginning of a new era for academic and research funding for the country. As one of the largest radiation protection societies in the world, the products from this activity, combined with our position statements, will strengthen our scientific voice and influence radiation research, protection, and safety policies in the future.

Finally, I want to reflect on my three initiatives. My first was to promote a pro-science platform. The "History of the LNT Model" video series is an excellent example that looked at the science behind this model and how it became part of our regulations and policies. Unfortunately, it exposed a troubling history where science was compromised for reasons the viewers can decide. Future regulations and policies that continue to rely on the LNT model for low dose and low dose-rate environments should be aware of the unintended consequences associated with policy that was assumed to be conservative and protective. In 2000, Past President Paul Rohwer responded to Congress' questions about the LNT model and stated "we believe 'a standard that is the most protective of human health' requires evaluation of the total public-health risk imposed by the standard. This includes consideration of the public-health impact of a standard that can be so restrictive that it does more harm than good due to the mis-appropriation of public-health funds or the imposition of a risk from complying with the standard that is greater than the hypothetical risk associated with the standard." It's been 23 years since this message was sent to Congress and my recent letters to Congress expressed a similar concern after a New York Times article revealed that nearly a half-trillion dollars have been spent on cleaning up the Hanford tank farms, with no end in sight. My letters asked for Congress to conduct an oversight investigation to ensure that the latest science is incorporated into the radiation protection standards for low-dose environments. Other reasons for my request are explained in an article that will appear in the newsletter soon.

My second initiative was to focus on membership. It's no surprise that our membership has been in a long downward trend for over a decade. Mostly due to attrition and a stagnant nuclear industry. However, our Membership Committee, under the leadership of Lainy Cochran, has been committed to sharing the value of HPS membership. As a result, we stopped the downward trend and experienced an increase of total members! Please join me in congratulating the Membership Committee for starting what we hope will be a long upward trend over the next decade.

My third initiative was to focus and strengthen on our strategic planning to keep our organization relevant. Our strategic planning advisor, Mike Lewandowski, has brought clarity and consistency to our planning efforts for many years. His leadership helped me and the Board to stay focused on short-term and long-term goals. The HPAERC and a renewed Professional Ethics Committee are just two examples of long-term activities that will benefit the Society and our profession in the future.

Finally, I look forward to seeing you next year at the 16th International Radiation Protection Association/HPS meeting in Orlando, Florida! It's been an honor to serve as your president of this prestigious organization.