26
RADIATION STANDARDS, INCLUDING FALLOUT
Representative Barres. Do you have any figures on waste products?
Dr. Tayztor. I don’t think the figures are very reliable on that.
But certainly the figure is very small at the present time.
The fourth category is fallout from weapons testing. Fallout is
an unfortunate byproduct of some weapons testing programs. It
can be eliminated or reduced only by the sacrifice of information
needed for our national defense and security. Only in the wisdom
of our national leaders can the gain and risk be compared and the
general public is in no position to debate this point.
As long as we must learn to live in a world along with nuclear
weapons we must chalk up one plus for fallout; its analysis gives us
much valuable information about the weapons tested by other nations.
It is hardly worth testing just for that purpose, I might remark.
At its peak levels, fallout has contributed less than 1.5 percent of our
average per capita doset'(an average of 2 millirems per year’).
The fifth category is fallout from nuclear warfare. This could well
contribute many thousands of times the dose of radiation that man is
nowliving with. There is no basis for comparison betweenitseffects
and those from present exposurelevels.
Representative Price. Thank you very much, Dr. Taylor.
Dr. Taylor, were you implying on page 1 that nuclear testing and
waste disposal are suspect in the harm to lower forms of animal life
and damageto our ecology ?
Dr. Taytor. The radiation from nuclear operations can be hazardous to lower forms of animal life and to our ecology.
Representative Price. Was this what you were thinking of ?
Dr. Tarzor. Yes, sir.
Representative Price. What are the factors that you state that the
part played by social and economic factors and so forth, on page 1,
imply ?
Dr. Tayzor. Sir, we set our radiation protection levels on the basis
of some limited experience with man, some experience with animals,
some biological experience, and soon. We are forced to make assumptions about the linearity of radiation effects or that radiation dosages
can accumulate under certain conditions. These are unproven facts.
We have not yet been able to establish any causative relationship between industrial exposures and injury to man, Therefore, we are of
necessity working somewhat in the dark in this whole question of
radiation protection standards. As long as this is the situation we
have to use judgment factors as to what kind of radiation levels we
are willing to work with. Our judgement factors are going to be influenced by public necessity, economic necessity, medical necessity, and
so on.
Representative Prick. Mr. Ramey has a question at this point.
Mr. Ramey. When you are talking of social and economic factors, do
you mean also this question of the statistical concept of risk? You
mentioned these standards started out by way of necessity, such as
radiation workers and the celebrated cases of licking the brushes by
radium workers, and so on, where you actually found physical damage
as a result of radiation. Now we are taking our standard to where
they are applying to whole populations and where you can’t observe
or discover any damagingeffects.
+See supplementary testimony at end of Dr. Taylor’s testimony, p. 30.
# Editor’s note: This an annual genetic dose averaged over a period of 30 years.
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