Brief review of our present understanding of spontaneous and radiation-induced mutation in humans

The demonstration that radiation can increase the rate of occurence of germ-line mutation in plants and animals is now more than 50 years old. This fact began to attract much wider attention in the 1950's, with the continued testing of nuclear weapons and the advent of nuclear power. In the 1960's, further atmospheric contamination from the testing of nuclear weapons was generally eliminated, and improved radiologic techniques decreased medical exposures, but new genetic concerns were aroused by questions of nuclear reactor safety and problems of radioactive waste disposal. It will be the purpose of this presentation to attempt to put the genetic concerns created by these developments in brief perspective. We will consider first the nature of spontaneous mutation, then the contribution of spontaneous mutation to disease, then the state of our information concerning radiation-induced genetic damage in higher organisms, including man, and finally, how, as a result of recent technological developments, we may be able to improve our appreciation of the extent to which current and potential radiation exposures might be expected to influence human mutation rates. The difficulties in any precise extrapolation from experimental organisms to man will be brought out