2003 Recommendations of
the ECRR
2.1 Objectivity
2.2 Basis of the report
2.3
Scope of the report
2.4 References
Link to Executive
Summary
The Health Effects of Ionising Radiation Exposure at Low Doses and
Low Dose Rates for Radiation Protection Purposes:
Regulators’ Edition
Chapter 2: Basis and Scope of the Report
The European Committee on Radiation Risk
arose from a recognition among scientists, politicians and campaigners that
there was considerable disagreement over the health effects of low-level
radiation and the feeling that this issue should be explored on a formal
level. The committee's remit was to consider all the available scientific
evidence. In particular, the committee was to make no assumptions whatever
about preceding science and to remain independent from the previous risk
assessment committees such as the International Commission on Radiological
Protection (ICRP), the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of
Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), the European Commission and risk agencies in any
EU member State. The committee believes that in the search for scientific
objectivity it should 'look out of the window', rather than following the
trend of increasing dependence on processes of mathematical modelling. Thus
the committee has considered the results of studies published in the
peer-review literature and also reports, books and articles which have not
been submitted for peer review. The committee believes that the approach
adopted by scientific risk committees of only accommodating evidence with
accurate dose-response data published in peer review scientific journals has
resulted in the propagation of a model which is increasingly seen to be
unsafe. Furthermore, the committee believes that discussions in the area of
radiation risk must involve all groups in Society. Therefore, although
primarily consisting of scientists, the committee and its advisors include
those physicians, non-scientists who must deal with medical problems of
exposed persons. For example, risk assessment should include physicians
trained in Public Health, Occupational Health Oncology, Paediatrics, and
scientists trained in Genetics, Epidemiology and Biochemistry. These
disciplines are not represented in the Main Committee of the ICRP. The
regulations on membership as posted by ICRP includes: physicists, medical
regulators, radiologists, biophysicists, etc. Persons who do not use
radioactive materials in their employment are excluded. Among those included
as advisors to the ECRR would be non-scientists such as risk sociologists,
lawyers, politicians and members of non-governmental organisations and
pressure groups.
The present report is intended to
be accessible to and to inform decision makers who need to assess health risks
to workers and members of the public who may be exposed as a result of
practices which involve ionising radiation. It is therefore labelled a
'Regulators' Edition', the aim being to condense or review enough of the area
for this process to be possible without being unwieldy. Future publications
will deal in depth with the issues outlined here. The basis of the report is a
perceived failure of the present radiation risk model (named here the ICRP
model) to explain or predict real increases in ill health in a large number of
groups exposed to ionising radiation at low doses. Most of the examples where
this has occurred will be referred to in the body of the report but the
position of the committee has been affected also by much that cannot be
included, for reasons of space. This includes reports which have been
published in the peer-review literature, and reports which have not, or which
started life as television documentaries and ended as court cases. The
committee has included consideration of those who voted with their feet and
left areas where there were nuclear sites, regions which slowly became
wastelands where only the poorest people could live and where the beaches were
deserted by holidaymakers and fish were increasingly difficult either to catch
or sell. It has included the tales of ordinary people who have been affected
by man-made radioactivity, in India, Namibia, Kazakhstan, Nevada, Australia,
Belarus and the Pacific Islands. For those who are prepared to read
contemporary reports there are enough desperate stories. One example is that
of weapons tests and the Australian Aboriginal people who were found dead in
contaminated craters. Another concerns whole tribes in the Marshall Islands
who had to abandon the Islands which they had called home for 3000 years.
The report will review the present methodology for
assessing radiation risk. It will argue that its dependence on averaging, both
in the area of energy deposition in tissue in space and time and also its
dependence on epidemiological studies involving external exposure has resulted
in major errors in its quantification of risk from internal irradiation. It is
intended that the report should convey sufficient evidence that the present
radiological safety models are largely accurate for external irradiation
situations involving doses greater than 100 mSv but break down where
calculations involving averaging methods are used to examine non-uniform doses
in microscopic tissue volumes. The report will examine the historical origin
of the ICRP model and will review epidemiological evidence for its successes
and failures. The report will consider the philosophical aspects of the
science of radiation risk and make a distinction between the inductive and
deductive approaches to establishing objective risk estimates. It will present
evidence for quantitative ranges of error in the ICRP models as highlighted by
various authors and studies and will assemble these into a set of hazard
enhancement weighting factors which form the basis of a pragmatic interim
approach to the problem of assessing radiation risk using the present units
and quantities. Finally, the report will briefly outline some examples of the
application of such a system for assessing radiation risk. A calculation of
the mortality yield of the post-war nuclear age based upon ICRP and modified
ICRP risk factors will also be presented. The approach is necessarily
pragmatic. Data on radiation exposures and activities has been tabulated and
recorded using units of dose devised from within the ICRP system: it is
therefore necessary to provide factors which may be used with this system and
this is what the committee has striven to achieve. These factors are provided
as central estimates of hazard enhancement for certain types of exposure and
may be used as multipliers of risk for the risk factors presently used by
ICRP. However, the committee believes that the use of the average energy dose
units Gray and Sievert places too many constraints on the science of risk
assessment for internal isotopes and that a different, more rational system of
assessing such exposures is required. Some suggestions are made towards
achieving such a system.
The committee carefully considered
the question of whether the editors should attempt to reference every
statement made in this Regulators' Edition. On the one hand, the ICRP, whose
handbook ICRP90 this present volume is intended to supplant, contains no
references. On the other hand, the more lengthy reviews of the United Nations
(UNSCEAR) and the US Academy of Sciences (BEIR) carry select references which
support their statements whilst omitting other references to work which either
falsifies or does not support their statements. In addition, the committee was
aware both of the constraints that would be placed on the size of the edition
if all statements were referenced, and the loss of flow of the argument which
would follow the considerable expansion of the text. As a compromise, the
committee decided to attach a list of the main works on which its beliefs are
founded, without attaching each to some piece of the text. In addition,
certain references are included where it seems particularly necessary to draw
attention to a particular source.
Link to Background to the ECRR's
2003 Recommendations
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