Editorial Comment on: Mortality in the French cohort of nuclear workers - Radioprotection 52(3), DOI: 10.1051/radiopro/2017015

*Correspon In this issue of Radioprotection, K. Leuraud et al. present a comprehensive update of the main results obtained on mortality in the French cohort of nuclear workers. The publication of this article offers the opportunity to make a point on the current radiation protection system and on the strengths and limitations of epidemiology regarding the health risks associated to ionizing radiation exposure at low doses. The quantitative assessment of radiation risk is based on knowledge gained from epidemiological studies of radiationexposed populations, complemented by data from animal experiments, as well as fundamental in vitro cellular and biophysical studies. Epidemiology is currently the most informative approach for the assessment of health risks to humans from ionizing radiation.To carry out such an assessment in the best possible manner it is necessary to use information from as many well conducted studies as possible. As pointed out by MELODI, a European platform dedicated to low dose radiation risk research, in its 2016 statement, the current system of radiation protection has been developed and evolved on the basis of an understanding of the magnitude of health risks associated with radiation exposure together with knowledge of the mechanisms of radiogenic disease pathogenesis to inform risk extrapolation. The accurate assessment of health risks is fundamental to striking an appropriate and an acceptable balance between the benefits of use of ionizing radiation and the associated health risks. Accordingly, the 2016 draft of MELODI’s Strategic Research Agenda puts first the dose and dose-rate dependency of cancer risk and second non-cancer risks. These topics are of relevance to answer the question about the robustness of the radiation protection system, i.e. is it adequate, does it overprotect, or does it miss to include relevant risks. Today, the major source of information on radiation risk related to external radiation exposure is still the Life-Span Study of the Japanese atomic bomb survivors. Since decades there is a continuing discussion whether the exposure pattern