Issues

Radiation protection standards are based on a combination of (1) very limited technical evidence, (2) technical judgment, and (3) selective judgment with regard to matters that are primarily social, political, or economic. There is virtually no information on the deleterious effects of radiation on man at the low levels recommended for radiation workers or for the population in general. These levels represent only a small fraction of the background radiation to which man has always been subjected. Moreover, any disease that can be caused by radiation can occur naturally without there being any necessary distinction as to the origin. Questions such as these, together with a discussion relative to the radiation to which man is normally exposed, were discussed in a lecture given at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna on March 31, 1960, and the present paper is an abridgment of that lecture.