A National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine committee is neutral on whether the Department of Energy should lead any revived federal research effort on potential health impacts of low-dose radiation, the head of the panel, said Friday.
Tribal communities and atomic workers “generally do not support” a DOE-run low-dose radiation program, Joe Gray, professor emeritus of laboratory medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said during an online briefing on the National Academies of Sciences (NAS) report last week.
“The committee did not directly say how DOE should address this lack of trust,” Gray said. But “the impacted communities should have a major say in how it’s done.”
The DOE Office of Science has led multi-agency low dose research in the past but its program funds have been largely phased out since 2016, Gray said.
The committee also said the National Institutes of Health also has a background in this type of research, has no regulatory conflicts, and has previously worked with DOE on human genome research, Gray said. It is a complex job and cannot be handled by a sole agency, he added.
Although DOE has done low-dose radiation research in the past, many stakeholders picture the agency as having a conflict of interest given its long history with nuclear weapons research, development and cleanup.
The report recommends the United States start spending $100 million annually on low-dose radiation over the next 10-to-15 years to get a handle on the health risks. Low-dose is defined as below 100 milligray or low-dose rates or less than 5 milligray per hour, which occurs in various medical, industrial, military, and commercial settings, NAS said in a press release. Current domestic research is “fragmented, lacking leadership, central coordination, and an overarching strategic agenda,” according to the report.
A Government Accountability Office report in November 2017 suggested that DOE play a central role in low-dose radiation research but was not eager to take the lead.
The committee believes now is the time to revitalize low-dose research given its potential contribution in non-cancer illnesses such as cardiovascular problems, Gray said. Also technology available to compile and analyze low-dose data has escalated in recent years, he added.
The report is available for free download online. The committee is accepting public comment on the report through June 17 and a virtual town hall presentation is planned for June 16.
