RADIATION STANDARDS, INCLUDING FALLOUT NEW DEVELOPMENTS 313 SINCE 1960 The philosophy, concepts, and often the actual language of the recommendations of the NCRP and ICRP have been applied, adopted, and incorporated into sections of Federal and State codes and into policies of private industrial firms. Noteworthy applications and modifications of the recommendations of the NCRP and the ICRP during the past 2-year period have been made by the Federal Radiation Council (FRC). The FRC, since its inception has offered guidance to Federal agencies in its Staff Report No. 1 issued in May 1960,(2) and Staff Report No. 2 issued in September 1961(3). In Report No. 2 the FRO adopted a range concept in stipulating the control of radiation dose to certain critical organs of the body, which earries the promise of introducing much needed flexibility. In Report No. 2 guidance to the Federal agencies is provided in the form of allowable daily intake rates for strontium 89, strontium 90, iodine 131, and radium 226. Briefly stated, range I is the lowest of the three ranges and it spans the intake rate which is equivalent to essentially no radiation dose up to a dose equivalent to one-tenth of the so-called radiation protection guide or permissible dose. Range II extends from one-tenth of the radiation protection guide to the full radiation protection guide leyel; operation in this range requires a quantitative surveillance program and routine control of the releases of radionuclides to the public domain. Range III is the uppermost range and spans an order of magnitude above the radiationprotection guide; operation in range III requires an evaluation program and application of additional control measures as necessary to reduce the exposure. ‘While the guidance offered by the FRC is for application by Federal agencies. the extension of this guidance to the industrial firm is commonplace because of the thousands of firms having a licensee or contractor relationship with the Atomic Energy Commission. A primary standard or limit for controlling radiation hazards is an expression in terms of limitation of dose to individuals or to populations at large. Federal Radiation Council Report No. 2 offers definitive guidance on a method of controlling radiation by timitation of daily rates of intakes of certain radionuclides by members of the public. This portion of Report No. 2 has the nature of a secondary standard. The incorporation of such secondary standards into a collection of Federal guides may have advantages for those engaged in activities limited to work with modest amounts of one or two radionuclides. For those activities where large quantities of radioactive materials are processed, the release, under controlled conditions, of extremly small fractions of the quantity of materials being handled requires sophisticated environmental evaluation programs. For these types of activities, rigorous application of a secondary standard may have important disadvantages. I will come back to this point later. Since the 1960 hearings another noteworthy development has been the statement of the NCRP on exposure limits applicable to the emergency situation. These recommendations are contained in NCRP Report No. 29, “Exposure to Radiation in an Emergency” (4). They provide definitive dose andrisk criteria for justifiable action in the event of serious emergencies of an individual origin as well as possible nuclear warfare. This recent guidance by the NORP is a valuable addition to the other NCRP recommendations. INDUSTRIAL USERS OF RADIATION PROTECTION STANDARDS While there have been few changes in the basic radiation protection standards since the hearings in 1960, there have been many activities bearing on the generation of standards and their use and application in this formative period through which this country is now going in the area of radiation standards regnlntion. This is becoming particularly evident as the transfer of responsibilities for certain source, byproduct, and special nuclear materials from the Atomic Iinergy Commission to the States is occurring under the revision of the Atomic Energy Act. There are perhaps three definable categories of industrial users of ionizing radiation. Phe largest single category is composed of ANC contractors who aecount for about two-thirds of the estimated employment of the entire atomic energyfield (5). These contractors are frequently involved with extensive and complex uses of radiation sources and therefore often have need to apply radiation protection standards extensively to a wide variety ef conditions. Tn its re SORASUI? Jackarashgaitze BiGtrite