Health Effects of Low‐Level Ionizing Radiation

AUG 01, 1991

BEIR V—the National Research Council’s fifth committee on the biological effects of ionizing radiation—found the population’s risk of injury to be somewhat larger than estimated previously.

DOI: 10.1063/1.881267

Arthur C. Upton

The effects of ionizing radiation have received greater study than those of any other environmental agent. Within months after Wilhelm Roentgen’s discovery of the x ray in 1895, early radiation workers experienced injurious effects of overexposure to radiation. In the century since, the study of such effects has received continuing impetus from the expanding use of radiation in medicine, science and industry and from the peaceful and military applications of nuclear energy.

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More about the Authors

Arthur C. Upton. Institute of Environmental Medicine, New York University Medical Center, New York City.