The 1984 International Labour Conference Resolution concerning the improvement of the working conditions and the environment laid down the fundamental objectives and principles on which the Infocus Programme on Safety and Health and the Environment (SafeWork) of the International Labour Organization (ILO) is based. The protection of the worker against ionizing radiations falls naturally within ...

IOLOGICAL damage resulting from radiation treatment has been studied in a B number of biological systems (LEA 1947; HOLLAENDER 1954; BARQ and ALEXANDER 1955). ZIRKLE (1954) discussed the implications of the observed influence of linear energy transfer upon biological damage. More recently BURCH ( 195 7) has discussed several problems of relative biological efficiency with respect to the methods...

T H A T ionizing radiations produce deleterious biological effects 'has ,been proven by sixty years of experience and experimentation. Qualitatively, the effects of all ionizing radiations, whether they are gamma rays or heavy primary cosmic parti.cles, are the same and are a manifestation of the ionization produced in cells and tissaes,. Quantita~tivety, the effects are dependent on quality an...

Whether inner-shell ionizations of DNA atoms, called core ionizations, are critical events for cell inactivation by ionizing radiations such as 100 keV electrons and gamma rays has been investigated. The number of core ionizations in DNA atoms per gray of the two types of radiations is calculated from various Monte Carlo track simulations. The probability that a core ionization leads to cell in...

A biomarker that would distinguish radiation-induced biological damage from damage produced by other agents has long been a goal in radiation biology. We suggest that densely ionizing radiations such as alpha particles from radon daughters, or fission neutrons, leave a distinctive chromosomal marker that may be detected and measured long after radiation exposure. Specifically, they produce an a...

We review here the advances in understanding the effects of ionizing radiations on DNA, proteins and their complexes, resulting from the collaboration of the authors’ teams. It concerns the preponderant indirect effect of low LET ionizing radiations, thus the attack of the macromolecules in aqueous solution by the most aggressive product of water radiolysis, the hydroxyl radical. A model of sim...

The NASA Radiation Health Program has supported basic research over the last decade in radiation physics to develop ionizing radiation transport codes and corresponding data bases for the protection of astronauts from galactic and solar cosmic rays on future deep space missions. The codes describe the interactions of the incident radiations with shield materials where their content is modified ...

Health risks from space radiations, particularly from densely ionizing radiations, represent an important challenge for long-ranged manned space missions. Reliable methods are needed for scaling low-LET to high-LET radiation risks for humans, based on animal or in vitro studies comparing these radiations. The current standard metric, relative biological effectiveness (RBE) compares iso-effect d...

Confounding factors in radiation pulmonary carcinogenesis are passive and active cigarette smoke exposures and radiation hormesis. Significantly increased lung cancer risk from ionizing radiation at lung doses < 1 Gy is not observed in never smokers exposed to ionizing radiations. Residential radon is not a cause of lung cancer in never smokers and may protect against lung cancer in smokers. Th...