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Associate Research Scientist of Environmental Health Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health
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and:
Director, Eye Radiation and Environmental Research Laboratory
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Selected Global Activities
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| ICRP Task Group on Tissue Reactions and Non-Cancer Effects of Radiation
Project URL: www.icrp.org
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The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), a multi-national, independent network of specialists in various fields of radiological protection, provides recommendations and guidance on all aspects of protection against ionizing radiation to the general public and to governmental regulatory bodies and agencies. Its reports are published by Elsevier in the “Annals of the ICRP”. The ICRP uses Task Groups of specialists (performing defined tasks) and Working Parties (developing ideas) to prepare its reports. At any one time, about one hundred scientists are actively involved in the work of ICRP.
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| U.S. Director; Ukranian American Chernobyl Ocular Study (UACOS)
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The Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident in 1986 and resultant explosion and fire caused radioactive contamination of large areas of Belarus and Ukraine. More than 250,000 individuals (Liquidators) were involved in clean-up and maintenance activities at the site. Many thousands were exposed to low doses of ionizing radiation.
The Ukranian American Chernobyl Ocular Study (UACOS) was established in 1996 to monitor the effects of this radiation exposure on the eyes of clean-up workers. Among eye tissue, the lens is most radiosensitive. Time and dose dependent development of posterior subcapsular cataracts (psc) following radiation exposure is well established as a marker of radiosensitivity. The goals of the UACOS are to monitor development of psc in a subset of the Liquidator population that undergoes periodic health and ophthalmological examinations and for whom there is good bio-dosimetry data associated with the clean-up efforts.
In particular, this multi-decade, longitudinal study measures radiation cataract incidence, non-subjectively grades and records lens opacification using Scheimpflug imaging and, in cases where cataracts are surgically removed, stores lens capsule-epithelial fragments for biochemical and molecular biological analysis.
To date, findings from this study have led to a significant lowering of the supposed cataract “threshold” radiation dose, to about 130 mSv, and have called into question the prevailing view of radiation cataract as a deterministic event. If, in point of fact, radiation cataract development is not deterministic but instead, stochastic, with no radiation threshold, then re-evaluation of current risk-assessment standards is warranted.
Countries: Ukraine
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