Fear Of New Atom Radiation Hazard

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28260, 24 April 1957, Page 13

Fear Of New Atom Radiation Hazard

(Rec. 9 p.m.) WASHINGTON, April 22.

The possibility of a hitherto unsuspected hereditary hazard from atomic radiation was reported today by an Atomic Energy Commission scientist, Dr. W. L. Russell.

» New evidence from tests on 1 mice suggested the possibility that 1 radiation might shorten the life ! span not only of the person rel ceiving it, but also of children of •xposed individuals, he said. I Up to now, shortening of the , life span has been considered a potential hazard only for persons [ directly exposed. j Genetic, or hereditary, hazards t were considered to include physi- . cal and mental defects, but not l shortening of the life span. Dr. Russell, chief geneticist in , the Biology Division of the Com- ; mission’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, prepared his report for a ■meeting of the National Academy . of Sciences. ’ He said the life-shortening effect . showed up in first-generation off- ; spring of exposed mice. [ Describing tests made on male ! mice exposed to “moderate doses” [ of acute neutron radiation from a . nuclear explosion, Dr. Russell re- . ported these results: : Length of life in offspring of the mice was shortened by six-

tenths of a day for each roentgen (unit of radiation) received by the father in his reproduction system. If the same ratio were to hold true for humans, he said, It would give a 20-day shortening of a child’s life for each roentgen of radiation received by a father. Dr. Russell said the mice were exposed to radiation under conditions differing from those most important in terms of possible human hazards. Thus, he said, if exactly parallel conditions were employed, a “somewhat smaller effect” might have been shown in the mice offspring. “However,” he added, “since the present data show an effect on the mouse offspring which is as large as the shortening-of life in the exposed individuals themselves, it seems likely that, even when allowance is made for the conditions of human radiation exposure, shortening of life in the immediate descendants will turn out to be of a magnitude that will warrant serious consideration as a genetic hazard in man.” Dr. H. Bentles Glass, a geneticist at Johns Hopkins University, told the meeting that the peacetime uses of radiation might be

doing considerably more hereditary harm to man than had been supposed up to now. He strongly recommended that a “pilot study” be undertaken at once to determine just how much radiation human beings received from the cradle to the end of their peak reproductive period.

Dr. Glass said the present recommended safe limits might have to be revised sharply lower. Dr. Glass dismissed the genetic effects of nuclear bomb tests as “insignificant.” But he said he was worried about the possible effects of medical, dental, and diagnostic uses of X-rays. He said he believed that the pilot study should be undertaken before the situation was further aggravated by radiation from industrial atomic power plantsDr. Glass is a member of the genetics committee of the National Academy of Sciences which last June recommended that individual records be kept of the life time radiation exposure of all persons