Dr. Miller and Dr. Beebe have for many years been involved in original investigations on the health effects, especially cancer, of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Dr. Beebe's current research, in association with Dr. Land, includes a study of primary cancer of the liver in A-bomb survivors, stimulated in part by the high incidence of liver cancer from exposure to alpha radiation from Thorotrast, the radiographic contrast medium. For both Dr. Miller and Dr. Beebe the experience of the A-bomb survivors provides a major resource for consulta- tions, lectures, and articles on radiogenic cancer. Dr. Beebe plays a major role in the development of studies of leukemia and thyroid cancer following the Chernobyl accident in Ukraine in 1986. The Chernobyl studies are directed by Dr. Wachholz, Chief, Radiation Effects Branch. Scientific issues of current interest include: the basis for individual sensitivity to the carcinogenic effect of radiation, the effect of radioiodine exposure on thyroid cancer in children, the contrast between high- and low-linear-energy-transfer (LET) radiation as to their induction of liver cancer, the possible interaction between radiation and hepatitis viruses in producing liver cancer, time-response characteristics of radiogenic cancers, and the influence of dose-rate and dose-fractionation on dose-response characteristics. Dr. Beebe serves as the Departmental Representative on the Science Panel of the Committee on Interagency Radiation Research and Policy Coordination (under the Federal Coordinating Council on Science, Engineering, and Technology, or FCCSET) and has been especially concerned in the effort to reach a Federal consensus on risk estimates for radiogenic cancer. He has also urged that contingency plans be made for research to be carried out in the event of a nuclear disaster in the US.
