Cut Radiation Exposure 60%, Panel to Urge

An international panel of experts said Friday that radiation is three times more health-damaging than previously thought and it will recommend that governments reduce worker exposure limits by 60%.

The International Commission on Radiological Protection, an advisory panel of radiation experts, said new studies--particularly those focusing on Japanese atomic bomb survivors--show radiation is a more potent cause of cancer and genetic damage than was estimated by the panel 13 years ago.

“Radiation is more risky than we thought in 1977 (by) a factor of three . . . “ said Dan Beninson, chairman of the commission and head of Argentina’s nuclear energy commission.

Beninson told reporters also that the new health risk estimates underlined more clearly than ever before that even low levels of radiation are hazardous.

“Any dose of radiation, no matter how small, means a risk,” he said. “The larger the dose, the larger the risk, but we don’t say there is any dose where there is no risk.”

The commission’s conclusions are similar to the findings announced several months ago by a National Academy of Sciences panel, which said radiation was three to four times as deadly as previously believed.

As a result of its new health risk estimates, the international commission said that it would revise its 1977 radiation protection guidelines later this year to recommend that governments reduce occupational exposure limits to two rems of radiation a year from five rems.

The occupational exposure limits apply to nuclear power plant workers, uranium miners, medical personnel administering X-rays and other workers routinely exposed to radiation sources on the job.

For the public, the commission said it would recommend no change in its current annual limit of 100 millirem--one-tenth of a rem--based on average exposure over a lifetime.

However, the panel said it would effectively tighten the standard by recommending the 100-millirem limit be applied over an averaging period of five years.

Frank Ingram, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which sets U.S. radiation exposure standards, said the agency had no immediate response to the commission’s findings.