The 1990 Recommendations of the ICRP - Where do we go?

For over two years, the new recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) has been one of the most important topics in radiation protection and nuclear energy field. For considerations in the course of implementation of the new recommendations, some main issues were critically reviewed. Specifically, the reduction of dose limits for occupational exposures and the introduction of dose constraints call for much attention. Regardless of the scientific meaning of dose limits, lowered limits convey lots of implications to be speculated. How-to-meet the lower limits could be a problem for existing practices but more difficult task for specialists would be how to communicate with the general public on the radiation risks. Constraints for optimization of protection are conceptually plausible but subject to ambiguity for implementation to the regulatory system. It would have been better if more rigorous and specific guidelines for exemption of trial sources of exposure were provided to facilitate international harmonization. Training of personnel in radiation protection field is of most importance for implementation of the new system and will require considerable amount of cost