Perspectives in Radiation and Health: Reflections on the International Conference in Beer Sheva

Environmental Health Perspectives 105, Supplement 6, December 1997

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Perspectives in Radiation and Health: Reflections on the International Conference in Beer Sheva

Keith F. Baverstock

World Health Organisation, European Centre for Environment and Health, Rome, Italy

Abstract
Insofar as international conferences reflect the state of development of the subject under discussion, they provide an opportunity to question, at a rather fundamental level, the direction of and progress in the subject. With regard to the effects of radiation on health, many of the problems faced today, including uncertainties in the relationship between risk and dose and the origins of the psychosocial phenomena associated with many aspects of environmental radiation exposure, arise from a lack of adequate frameworks within which to understand the radiopathological impact of radiation exposure and the psychological and social implications of such exposures. It is concluded that in seeking an understanding of the relationship of health effects to exposure, through the underlying radiobiological processes, the perturbation of the dynamic interactions within the components of the organism should receive more emphasis.The public perception of risk from environmental radiation exposures appears to encompass factors in addition to the accrued health detriment. It is argued that the radiological protection of the public might be seen more beneficially in the context of other environmental risks. -- Environ Health Perspect 105(Suppl 6):1611-1617 (1997)

Key words: psychosocial effect, thyroid cancer, paradigms, radiological protection, Chernobyl

This paper is based on a presentation at the International Conference on Radiation and Health held 3-7 November 1996 in Beer Sheva, Israel. Abstracts of these papers were previously published in Public Health Reviews 24(3-4):205-431 (1996). Manuscript received at EHP 12 August 1997; accepted 18 August 1997.
Address correspondence to Dr. K.F. Baverstock, World Health Organization, European Centre for Environment and Health, via Francesco Crispi 10, 00187 Rome, Italy. Telephone: 39 64 87 75 48. Fax: 39 64 87 75 99. E-mail: kba@who.it
Abbreviations: ICRP, International Commission on Radiological Protection; LET, linear energy transfer; WHO, World Health Organization.

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