'Controllable dose'. Results and proposals from discussions within the German-Swiss radiation protection association (FS)

The FS has translated the proposal by Roger Clarke into German and has published it both on its webpage and in its journal 'Strahlenschutz PRAXIS' 2/99 interesting discussions have taken place among members, within the Board and within Working Groups, and a workshop is planned for early 2000. Results of these discussions and some recommendations and suggestions for the development of the proposal will be presented. The spread of opinions is shown, but no attempt is yet made to develop a formal opinion or position of the FS on this matter. The FS is ready to co-operate in the further development of this topic and will deal with it also in its coming annual congresses. A fundamental question is, whether the new concept can become a mere addition to the existing concepts and recommendations, or whether ICRP will have to reconsider and renew the entire concept and fundamentals of radiation protection. One consequence might be to go all the way and stop to base the 'limits' on risk considerations. Risk as a term and as a concept is mostly misunderstood and misused. The new concept should not simply add a new quantity and unit to the too many already existing ones but reduce the number or quantities to the indispensable ones for application. Another problem which ICRP will have to manage in future recommendations independently of the fate of the Clarke proposal is to provide unequivocal and equivalent translations of any special terminology into the major languages (German, French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Chinese). Abolishing collective dose is welcomed. For special purposes such as comparing the radiation protection efficiency of specific tasks, the sum of individual doses should rather be called 'group dose' or 'team dose'. The coming discussions will also have to include proposals and guidance on how to implement a new or revised concept and how to make the transition to it. Therefore, once ICRP will have decided to proceed, a first draft of new Basic Safety Standards should be developed in parallel to drafts of new basic recommendations. (author)