Probability of causation: Implications for radiological protection and dose limitation

摘要

This report on the probability of causation of radiation-induced cancer is an attempt to bring together biology, chemistry, physics and statistics to calculate a value in the form of a ratio expressed as a percentage. In involves the interactions of numerous cancer risk factors, and all are fraught with technical difficulties and uncertainties. It is a computational approach to a societal problem that should be resolved in the political arena by men and women of government and law. But, it must be examined, because at the present, we have no reasonable method to explain the complexity of the mechanism of radiation-induced cancer and the probability of injury to an individual exposed in the past to ionizing radiation, and because society does not know how to compensate such a person who may have been injured by radiation, and particularly low-level radiation. Five questions are discussed that concern probability of causation of radiation-induced cancer. First, what is it and how can we best define the concept. Second, what are the methods of estimation and cancer causation. Third, what are the uncertainties involved. Fourth, what are the strengths and limitation of the computational approach. And fifth, what are the implications for radiological protection and dose-limitation.