Views from the Japan health physics society

The Japan Health Physics Society set an ad hoc working group (hereinafter 'the Working Group') to investigate the proposals presented by Professor Roger Clarke, chairman of the ICRP, 111 1999 towards new ICRP recommendations, and to make suggestions from the standpoint as an academic society for radiological protection in Japan. The Working Group discussed the present situation of the system of radiation protection and the ICRP Proposals with regard to the items oh definition of dose, health effect of radiation, dose and dose level, category of exposure, optimisation and role of stakeholder, collective dose, exclusion and exemption, and medical exposure. The basic policy of the Working Group is that the philosophy and criteria of the system of radiation protection, which are now effectively used for relevant regulations or some other purposes and are functioning well, should be basically retained unless there are positive reasons for revising them on specific; grounds. The ICRP Proposals, an individual-oriented radiation protection concept, should basically be coherent with present protection system, a societal-oriented radiation protection concept, and should have enough rational scientific grounds. The Working Group: (1) suggests there is a need for scientific rationality in any newly introduced criteria or standards for the system of radiation protection; (2) understands, for the present, that there is no other option but to adopt the linear no-threshold (LNT) hypothesis relating dose and risk of health effects at low level radiation exposures. This is the precautionary principle as applied to radiological protection; (3) recommends the role of stakeholders be explained as an example of one of the steps in the optimisation process; (4) suggests protective action level or dose limits should he related to radiation risk, even though these levels indicate only when to begin considering protective actions; and (5) believes that establishing a system of radiation protection for medical exposure is important. (author)