Section 2 Public Health

**153**

**Chapter 12**

**Abstract**

Protection

*Hiromichi Fumoto*

Ethical Values in Radiation

received from nature in our living environment.

effects, linear no-threshold, environment

**1. Introduction**

tion exposures.

The subject of bioethics probably first began appearing in radiation protection terminology when the reference was being made to the survivors of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This chapter, therefore, referring to the history of radiation protection since X-ray and radium radiation sources, addresses the nightmare of atomic bombs based on a review of original data and endeavors to determine what the role of ethics is in the radiation protection system as applied to our daily lives constituent to these horrific events. Somatic effects, as differentiated from genetic effects, or late somatic effects are discussed, and an introduction to stochastic effects is also made. It should be noted that a linear no-threshold (LNT) model has been widely applied to radiation protection systems in its pragmatism to be applied to regulatory authorities. However, the radiation detriment below 50 mSv/y is not clearly explained so far. Even though it is only a model, some countries couple LNT with stochastic effects, believing that "lesser is better" as far as radiation exposure is concerned, with criteria reaching as low as tens of micro Sieverts/year, which is equivalent to one two-hundredth of the average exposure

**Keywords:** atomic bomb survivors, somatic effects, late somatic effects, stochastic

In this chapter, the ethical values in radiation protection are reviewed.

Soon after the discovery of X-rays and radium, radiation protection was applied to those who engaged with radiation sources [1, 2]. In the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb, the idea of free release was introduced as a precursor of exemption or clearance concepts [3]. The next tragedy witnessed by all the people in the world generated the idea to protect the general public from unexpected radia-

Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors' data became the basis of peaceful use of nuclear energy in later days. Utilitarian ethics led the radiation protection society first, up to the Chernobyl Accident. The accident had changed the utilitarian ethics

Nevertheless, Japan is one of the states which insisted on utilitarian ethics up to now. However, world nuclear society is shifting its base on radiation protection to

into individual right-oriented ethics in radiation protection [4].

lean on ethical values, as high as ever have been discussed before [5].
