• DOI:10.4324/9781315071985-12
• Corpus ID: 21985430

Radiation : early warnings ; late effects

@inproceedings{Lambert2002RadiationE,
  title={Radiation : early warnings ; late effects},
  author={Barrie E Lambert},
  year={2002}
}

• B. Lambert
• Published 2002
• Medicine

Since the discovery of ionising radiation just over 100 years ago, it has been appreciated that injudicious exposure could produce harmful effects, even death. However, the general excitement in the scientific community and the, often inappropriate, publicity which followed these discoveries ensured that the damage to health, particularly in the long term, was not given any prominence. The undoubted medical diagnostic and therapeutic value of X-rays and radioisotopes meant that caution tended to be thrown away and it was several decades before control over exposure of the public and workers was put in place. This control has slowly evolved as more knowledge of the processes of interaction between radiation and biological tissue has accrued, but it has often lagged behind clear evidence of effect. Changes over the last 70 years to recommendations governing radiation exposure have usually been more restrictive; even over the last 20 years we have perceived that the risk is about four to five times larger than hitherto thought. However, the controls have not always managed to adequately balance risk and benefit. To understand and analyse the development of radiation protection it is necessary to go back more than 100 years.