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National Academy Reviews Radiation Risk
The BEIR VII report is the updated scientific basis for radiation safety standards in the United States. NAS last addressed this topic in the BEIR V report, issued in 1990. NAS formed the BEIR VII committee in 2000 to review the large body of scientific research on radiation health effects that has accumulated over the past 15 years.3 “In general, BEIR VII supports previously reported risk estimates for cancer and leukemia, but the availability of new and more extensive data have strengthened our confidence in these estimates,” said Dr. Richard Monson, chairman of the BEIR VII committee and associate dean at the Harvard School of Public Health.
The study found that 1 percent of individuals receiving a dose of 10 rems would be expected to develop cancer, compared with the 42 percent likely to develop cancer from other causes. A 10,000-millirem dose is twice the NRC’s annual occupational limit.
The BEIR VII committee said it is difficult to estimate cancer risk from radiation doses of 10 rems or less. However, the committee said the BEIR VII study continues to support the “linear-no-threshold model” for radiation exposure. The model holds that risk declines commensurate with lower radiation exposures; very low exposures mean that the risk to an individual is very low but cannot be assumed to be zero. “The preponderance of information indicates that there will be some risk, even at low doses, although the risk is small,” Monson said.
Studies of children whose parents were exposed to radiation have found no adverse health effects that could be attributed to radiation. The committee said that the failure to observe such effects in human studies probably reflects that the genetic risks are very small.
3 The academy’s BEIR VI report addressed radiation exposure from radon.
National Academy Reviews Radiation Risk
The BEIR VII report is the updated scientific basis for radiation safety standards in the United States. NAS last addressed this topic in the BEIR V report, issued in 1990. NAS formed the BEIR VII committee in 2000 to review the large body of scientific research on radiation health effects that has accumulated over the past 15 years.3 “In general, BEIR VII supports previously reported risk estimates for cancer and leukemia, but the availability of new and more extensive data have strengthened our confidence in these estimates,” said Dr. Richard Monson, chairman of the BEIR VII committee and associate dean at the Harvard School of Public Health.
The study found that 1 percent of individuals receiving a dose of 10 rems would be expected to develop cancer, compared with the 42 percent likely to develop cancer from other causes. A 10,000-millirem dose is twice the NRC’s annual occupational limit.
The BEIR VII committee said it is difficult to estimate cancer risk from radiation doses of 10 rems or less. However, the committee said the BEIR VII study continues to support the “linear-no-threshold model” for radiation exposure. The model holds that risk declines commensurate with lower radiation exposures; very low exposures mean that the risk to an individual is very low but cannot be assumed to be zero. “The preponderance of information indicates that there will be some risk, even at low doses, although the risk is small,” Monson said.
Studies of children whose parents were exposed to radiation have found no adverse health effects that could be attributed to radiation. The committee said that the failure to observe such effects in human studies probably reflects that the genetic risks are very small.
3 The academy’s BEIR VI report addressed radiation exposure from radon.
