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RADIATION STANDARDS, INCLUDING FALLOUT
Representative Price. The next witness will be Dr. Lauriston
Taylor, Chief of the Radiation Division, National Bureau of Standards.
Dr. Taylor, the committee is happy to have you back again.
may proceed with your presentation.
You
STATEMENT OF LAURISTON S. TAYLOR,? RADIATION PHYSICS DIVISION, NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS
Dr. Taytor. Mr. Price, I appreciate the privilege of meeting again
with your committee. Iam going to deal in my discussion with two of
the three itemslisted in the outline, namely, the purpose of standards
and some of their biological effects and their meaning to laymen. I
would lke to delay until further in the hearing discussion of the
groups that are dealing with these questions, if this is agreeable with
you.
Representative Prics. That will be all right.
Dr. Tayxtor. Standards in the area of radiation protection, as in
many other areas of hygiene, have as a principal purpose the formulations, first, of a philosophy—and then rules—designed to eliminate or
minimize the chance of injury by radiation. Prevention of injury to
man himself—or to his descendants—appears to be the most pressing
problem, and indeed it is the problem that is of most immediate concern to the public. But while I do not wish to dwell on the subject,
injury to lower forms of animal life and damage to our ecology are
two elements that must not be overlooked. While probably occurring
only under conditions of heavy and widespread radioactive contamination of our environment, the indirect long-range effects on man could
be serious and the possibility of such occurrence should not be completely overlooked.
The fact that radiation protection standards could not be neat,
clean-cut niceties was brought out in the 1959 fallout hearings but
only received detailed attention in the 1960 hearings. At least your
committee—if not the general public—now has an appreciation of this
aspect of radiation protection. The part played by social and economic factors is recognized though little understood in any quantitative sense even by the various groups of specialists who have spent
many years or even lifetimes studying radiation hazard problems.
Since 1960 the matter of the social impact of radioactive exposure
has been one of the principal preoccupations of most protection groups
and J add, one with which we have not really been able to come to
grips. I will expand onthislater.
_ Let me turn to the question of new advances in the field of radiation protection. When one realizes that radiation protection groups
have struggled with their problems for some 85 years without Ending
any clear-cut answers, it should not be surprising that they cannot
report now any startling new basic information that will materially
1 Biographical material: Lauriston 8. Taylor, National Bureau of Standards: Has been
a member of the National Bureau of Standards since 1927, with the exception of a 3-year
period during World War II, when he was in charge of Operations Research for the Pth
Air Force in Europe and for a 1-year period in 1958 when he was Chief of the Biophysics
Branch of the Atomic Energy Commission. Presently Chief, Radiation Physics Division,
at NBS; Chalrman, International Commission on Radiological Units and Measurements;
member, International Commission on Radiological Protection; Chairman, National Committee on Radiation Protection and Measurements; Chairman, National Academy of
Sctences Advisory Committee on Civil Defense; member, U.S. Public Health Service
National Advisory Committee on Radiation.
AgRUALORTE
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