Documents radiation monitoring 35 results

"The earthquake and tsunami in Japan on 11 March 2011 led to releases of radioactive material into the environment from the Tokyo Electric Power Company's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
A major release of radioactivity to the environment is always of concern, owing to potential acute and long-term health effects. Evidence from historic events confirms that any major uncontrolled release of radiation should be cause for immediate response and scientific assessment of potential health effects.
When such an event occurs, the World Health Organization's mandate, as described in the Joint Radiation Emergency Management Plan of the International Organizations, is to assess and respond to public health risks.
The primary purpose of this health risk assessment of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident is to estimate its potential public health impact so that future health needs can be anticipated and public health actions can be taken. This assessment is based on a preliminary estimate of radiation doses, as described in a WHO report published in May 2012."

"This handbook is intended to support decision-makers faced with a combination of public controversy, scientific uncertainty, and the need to operate existing facilities and/or the requirement to site new facilities appropriately. Its goal is to improve the decision-making process by reducing misunderstandings and improving trust through better dialogue. Community dialogue successfully implemented helps to establish a decision-making process that is open, consistent, fair and predictable. It can also help achieve the timely approval of new facilities while protecting the health and safety of the community."

"Corporations operating U.S. nuclear weapons plants for the federal government began tracking occupational exposures to ionizing radiation in 1943. However, workers, scholars, and policy makers have questioned the accuracy and completeness of radiation monitoring and its capacity to provide a basis for workers' compensation. We use interviews to explore the limitations of broad-scale, corporate epidemiological surveillance through worker accounts from the Savannah River Site nuclear weapons plant. Interviewees report inadequate monitoring, overbearing surveillance, limited venues to access medical support and exposure records, and administrative failure to report radiation and other exposures at the plant. The alienation of workers from their records and toil is relevant to worker compensation programs and the accuracy of radiation dose measurements used in epidemiologic studies of occupational radiation exposures at the Savannah River Site and other weapons plants."

"La radiologie interventionnelle consiste à effectuer des actes guidés par radioscopie. Elle s'est largement développée depuis 20 ans dans de nombreuses applications médicales et chirurgicales. Au-delà des avantages indéniables pour le patient, c'est une pratique susceptible de délivrer des doses importantes de rayonnements pour les professionnels qui la réalisent, en particulier pour leurs mains et leurs yeux. Organisation de la salle de radiologie, amélioration des techniques, port d'équipements de protection individuelle, respect des bonnes pratiques, surveillance dosimétrique des extrémités... sont autant de mesures de prévention qui sont détaillées. L'utilisation de la capillaroscopie pour étudier l'effet des rayonnements ionisants est également décrite."

"The health effects of radiation have been a focus for research since early in the 20th century. As the century ends, extensive experimental and epidemiologic evidence has been accumulated that addresses the adverse consequences of radiation exposure; epidemiologic studies of radiation-exposed groups from the general population and specific occupational groups provide quantitative estimates of the cancer risks associated with exposure. This report provides a perspective on the extensive epidemiologic evidence on the health effects of ionizing radiation and on likely needs for further epidemiologic research on radiation and health. Epidemiologic studies have proved informative on the quantitative risks of radiation-caused cancer but we now face the challenges of more precisely characterizing risks at lower levels of exposure and also of assessing modifiers of the risks, including dose rate, genetic susceptibility, and other environmental exposures. This report considers investigative approaches, such as pooled analysis of multiple data sets, that can be used to address these complex questions and the limitations of these approaches for addressing societal concerns about the risks of radiation exposure."

"Ionizing radiation long has been recognized as a cause of cancer. Among environmental cancer risks, radiation is unique in the variety of organs and tissues that it can affect. Numerous epidemiological studies with good dosimetry provide the basis for cancer risk estimation, including quantitative information derived from observed dose-response relationships. The amount of cancer attributable to ionizing radiation is difficult to estimate, but numbers such as 1 to 3% have been suggested. Some radiation-induced cancers attributable to naturally occurring exposures, such as cosmic and terrestrial radiation, are not preventable. The major natural radiation exposure, radon, can often be reduced, especially in the home, but not entirely eliminated. Medical use of radiation constitutes the other main category of exposure; because of the importance of its benefits to one's health, the appropriate prevention strategy is to simply work to minimize exposures."