~~ o—™\ DRAFT WSchroebel: 1s 6/20/73 NATIONAL COUNCIL ON RADIATION PROTECTION AND MEASUREMENTS* (NCRP). The NRCP was chartered by Congress in 1964 to collect, analyze, develop, and disseminate information and recommendations about pro- tection against radiation, radiation protection measurements and units, and to provide a means for cooperation between organizations concerned with radiation protection. The NCRP position is that the rational use of radiation should conform to levels of safety to users and the public which are at least as stringent as those achieved for other powerful agents. Con- tinuing and chronic exposure attributable to peaceful uses of ionizing radiation are assumed, The NCRP has adopted the assumption of no-threshold dose-effects relations and uses the term "dose limits" in providing guidance on population exposures. practicable. Radiation exposure is to be kept as low as The numerical values of exposure as presented are to be -interpreted as recommendations not regulations. Use of the no-threshold concept inwlves the thesis that there is no exposure limit free from some degree of risk. To establish criteria, NCRP uses the concept of “acceptable risk" (where the risk is compensated by a demonstrable benefit) broken Signe : down to fit classes of individuals or population groups exposed for various purposes to different quantities of radiation. Numerical *This was formely the National Committee on Radiation Protection and Measurements established in aha ca et a hl il . a ati = 7 onew