Low levels of ionizing radiation and cancer: are we underestimating the risk?
Darby, S. C. ; Reissland, J. A.
Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A
1981
144
3
298-331
cancer ; cohort study ; epidemiologic study ; ionising radiation ; mortality
Occupational diseases
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2981797
English
Bibliogr.;Charts
"The International Commission on Radiological Protection has given estimates of the risk of fatal cancer from low doses of ionizing radiation for use in the radiological protection of workers. Recent publications present data which, it is claimed, show that these estimates substantially underestimate the hazard. One of these (Mancuso et al, 1977) is based on data from the Hanford plant. This paper presents a more standard analysis of these data in which the observed death rates are examined for trends with increasing radiation dose, and also the total numbers of observed deaths are compared with those expected from United States national mortality data. Overall, no evidence is found to show that the currently used risk estimates are too low. However, there is increased mortality from multiple myeloma in the higher dose categories."
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