Abstract
Fancy and fact of low-dose effects: Social accountability and expectation to the Radiation Research Society
Masao SASAKI
Professor emeritus, Kyoto University
Fukushima nuclear power plant accident smashed our contemporary understanding on the effects of low-dose radiation. It directly asked yet unsolved scientific problems of intensive debate lying behind the setting of radiation protection. Two things have been evoked; one is an urgent need for the quantification of low-dose effect, and another is the sound framework amenable to social need. These are mutually related and present key issues of the social accountability of the scientists. (1) The Life Span Study of A-bomb survivors have provided fundamental information on how radiation dose relates the health effects but have met ambiguity at low doses largely due to a limitation of statistical power. A newly devised statistical test system adds much new to the study, such as dose-restricted threshold, internal exposure, radiation quality, age-at-exposure effect, crosstalk with environmental mutagens, choice of DNA repair pathway. They pose a new paradigm for deep understanding of radiation effects particularly at low doses. (2) In Japan, the science of radiation effects was prompted in response to radioactive pollution from and exposures to Bikini test bombing. JRRS continued the effort in promoting the science of radiation effects through the Science Council of Japan. Currently, to promote the innovative science in today's economic growth rate, the MEXT proposed integrative research center, either individual or by network. The low-dose radiobiology is a sort of big science. Fortunately, we have such integrative research centers for environmental radioactivity measurement, radiation effects and medicine, international innovation center for health risk, radiation biology, and nuclear sciences, of international and nationwide. The science of radiation effects of the urgent need may be facilitated by tightly associated network corporation of those integrative research centers and COEs in the universities.
