Proceedings

Report

UK Delegation with IRPA President
John Marshall (SRP), Delegation Leader (front)
First row: Bobby Corbett (BIR), Nominations Committee nominee, Pauline Powell (SRP), Geoff Webb, IRPA President, Tony Bandle (SRP)
Second row: Ruby Fong (IPEM), Roger Coates (SRP), Colin Partington (SRP), Rules Committee nominee
Back row: Wendy Bines (SRP), Tony Richards (AURPO), Christine Edwards (AURPO),
Not pictured: John Hunt (SRP)

Introduction and Scientific Programme

As usual, the Congress was the major international scientific meeting for the radiological protection community.  There were 1040 delegates, about a quarter of them from Japan, and a total of 58 countries were represented.  About 900 poster papers were accepted for presentation: about 700 actually presented.  The UK submitted 57 contributed papers as follows:

 17 BNFL
 9 Universities
 7 HSE
 6 DERA
 6 Hospitals
 3 CEFAS
 2 UKAEA
 2 SRP*
 5 others

*The SRP papers covered RPA 2000 arrangements and the International Committee/IRPA  interface arrangements.

The scientific proceedings were made up as follows:

• 8 plenary/invited lectures
• 26 topical sessions, each with one invited presentation and four or five papers selected from proffered papers relating to the chosen theme: 16 UK speakers within these sessions
• 16 'eye-opener' training/update sessions
• Poster presentation sessions
• Final conference review and summary session

Open Meeting of IRPA Executive 14 May

This meeting gave an overview of the arrangements for the conference and the Associate Society's Forum.  It was noted that 780 papers had been  published on a CD Rom which is part of the conference proceedings.  The eye-opener sessions will be published  on the IRPA website  which will also cover highlights of the conference.  It was also noted with pleasure that the Imperial Family will be present at the opening ceremony.  It was also noted that a total of $85,000 has been raised by grants from Associate Societies and other bodies to allow financial support for young scientists from less affluent regions to attend the Congress.  Eighty people have been supported in this way.

Associate Societies Forum

This five hour Forum was arranged in parallel with the scientific sessions and was a new departure for IRPA.  The objective was aimed at setting some direction for the next four years of the Executive Committee.  Six specific topics had been chosen in advance for debate following preliminary consideration by national societies.  Societies were also able to raise late issues of relevance.

Ethics

This topic is not reflected in IRPA's Constitution or Rules.  However, it was agreed that there is a need to define an ethical basis for our activities.  There is a need for professional bodies to demonstrate competence and integrity, especially in a litigious society!  There was considerable discussion over whether a code should apply to national societies and/or individual members.  The meeting generally supported the latter.  If a code is introduced at some stage it must become mandatory.  This brings issues such as how to judge compliance for societies or individuals.  There was an argument that a code of conduct may be better than a code of ethics.  The forum agreed that the IRPA Executive should pursue the development of such a code, together with an outline framework for its operation, including its status - for guidance initially, then mandatory (together with expectations of enforcement).  A digested system should be brought forward at the next IRPA Congress in four years time.

Establishment of Societies

The Executive Committee has produced guidance on the establishment of new national societies, taking a somewhat more relaxed approach than previously.  It is also expected that IRPA should be more proactive in assisting the establishment of a new society.  There was discussion of the intention for the Southern African society, in association with SRP, to support the development of the professional basis within English-speaking Africa.  It was agreed that all societies need to keep such support mechanisms visible to IRPA.  Prominence was also given to the formation in 1991 of a Latin American federation which has recently been extended to include Caribbean countries.  There was discussion over whether the IRPA fees ($2 per head) act as a disincentive to membership.  There was also encouragement for an increase in size of the Executive, with a need to link membership to linguistic or geographical base, together with a 'small society' representation.

International Meetings

The IRPA Executive has agreed more liberal guidelines on sponsoring IRPA regional meetings and the use of the IRPA logo.  There was also a suggestion to use the IRPA web page as a clearing house for avoiding overlapping meetings.  There was mention also of an Italian initiative to establish a European Congress in 2002.

Involvement in Standards

The meeting felt that IRPA and the Member Societies should play a more prominent role in contributing to and influencing the development of Standards from the earliest stages of their conception.  It was important to have a strong radiation protection professional/practitioner voice.  The more open, more focused, more co-ordinated approach taken over ‘controllable dose’ was a model for the future.

IRPA needs to be more communicative on its dealings with key Standards bodies eg. ICRP, ICNIRP, OECD-NEA, IAEA etc.  Websites and electronic communications now offered full scope for IRPA sampling opinions and ideas from the Member Societies prior to important discussions with Standards-making bodies and to provide quick and pertinent feedback.

Publications

IRPA need to develop quickly its policy and practice on exploiting electronic communications, for both publications and publicity purposes.  With the caveat that hard copy and traditional mechanisms would have to be maintained for some time to come, IRPA should act as a hub for electronic distribution and accessibility of its own materials (current and archive), those of Member Societies and other relevant sources of information and interest.  This might include discounted access to publications and websites for which there is a substantial charge or subscription.  It should encourage greater interaction and interchange at Member Society and individual level and could consider setting up ‘topical issue discussion groups’ associated with the IRPA website.

IRPA acknowledged the growing power of electronic communications and of the need to develop their website and the infrastructure to support this.

Research and Education

IRPA would not be an appropriate body to identify research needs and then commission or sponsor the necessary work.  It might provide a clearing house for latest research ideas/findings but it would be impossible to maintain any comprehensive, reliable or accurate database.  Other, more focused databases and arrangements were available for different areas of radiation protection and technology.

There was not much enthusiasm for IRPA to develop professional training or refresher courses but again it could act as a clearing house for mechanisms and materials developed and road tested by Member Societies.

IRPA could encourage competence-based accreditation and recognition systems and schemes and help facilitate mutual recognition arrangements but there was a long way to go before any sort of Universal scheme could be envisaged.

Other Issues

Two issues were brought up from the floor.  The French Society raised the issue of supporting individuals or their families who are victims of radiation incidents.  In discussion, it was clear that several societies had little option for support in this field because of charity law restraints.  Many of us also wished to avoid overlapping with the role of other organisations.  We do however have access to a network of people and support 'in kind' may be available via this route.  The second issue raised was that of risk communication and perception.  The way forward is not clear and the IRPA Executive will consider further.

Finally, there was discussion and agreement by IRPA that:

(a) the enhanced Associate Societies Forum has been a great success and should be repeated; and
(b) topic and issue discussion groups/breakout groups should be considered for future Congresses and Regional events.  Participation, interaction and outputs in terms of agreed action plans and priorities are becoming key factors in determining whether individuals attend major (several day) events, and whether their employers are prepared to release and/or fund them.

IRPA 10 General Assembly

There were a total of 162 delegates plus 12 Executive members.  It was reported that Algeria, Cuba, Madagascar, Turkey and Uruguay had joined since the last Congress.    A total of 42 societies representing 48 countries are now in membership of IRPA.  There was discussion of the accounts: the finances are generally healthy.  The only issue of significant debate was the proposal to decrease the grant to ICNIRP: this was reversed by the Assembly.

In the elections for Executive Officers, etc., we achieved our principal goal in that Geoff Webb was elected President for the next four years (unopposed).   Phil Metcalfe (South Africa) was elected Vice President.   Jack Lochard (France) has taken over as Executive Officer from Chris Huyskens.  Frank Masse (USA) has taken over as Treasurer from Ruprecht Mausart (Germany).  Dick Griffiths (USA) was appointed Publications Officer.  There were nine candidates for election to three places on the Executive Council.  Roger Coates from SRP was placed sixth and was therefore not elected.  Successful candidates were Kato (Japan), Wernli (Swiss/German Society) and Touzet (Argentina).

The Spanish Society made a presentation (including video) in support of their application to hold IRPA 11 in Madrid 2004.  Their bid was acclaimed unanimously.  Leopoldo Arranz was appointed as Vice President for Congress affairs with Annie Sugier as Chairman of the Scientific Programme Committee.

Four countries then made presentations declaring an intent to hold IRPA 12 in 2008:

• Argentina, in association with the Federation of Latin American Societies proposed Buenos Aires;
• Israel proposed Jerusalem (but stated either IRPA 12 or 13);
• The Nordic Society proposed Helsinki;
• Bobby Corbett of SRP made a short presentation offering four alternative sites in the UK;
• Additionally, the US Health Physics Society stated that they  would be interested in hosting an IRPA event in 2012 or later.

This session was chaired by Geoff Webb and began with a presentation from Roger Clarke.  The term 'controllable dose' is now replaced by "a system for dose control".  Key issues within the historical development noted that earlier ICRP presentations up to and including ICRP26 had come from a utilitarian ethical position, where the individual is less important than society.   In ICRP60, there was more emphasis on the individual and this was moving towards an equity-based system of ethics.  In effect, this placed a somewhat different (lower?) emphasis on collective dose.  Another feature of the latest statement of philosophy is that careful consideration is needed where exposures are greater than 10 times the typical background levels.  There is also an acceptance that justification is more than an issue of radiation protection: it is a policy matter for decision makers and doctors, and radiation protection issues are only a very small part of the overall picture.

National Societies were then invited to give their views.  Key issues arising were as follows

France

• Support collective dose for optimisation of occupational and public exposure
• Need justification for medical exposure
• Support source-related limit for public exposure
• Review how the reference group (critical group) is assessed
• Need to find a way to set a trivial risk level - is it generic or situation related (with an expectation towards the latter!)
• Need more active involvement of stakeholders

• Maintain justification
• Need to consider dose rates
• Liked the emphasis on comparing with natural background
• Somehow need a scale of benefits linked to the scale of doses
• Not quite clear on single/multiple source issues
• Support 1 mSv public limit being renamed as guidance and not limit
• Replace 'most exposed individual' by 'an exposed individual'
• Seek to avoid too much conservatism
• Support the abolition of unrestricted collective dose, but need to retain the overall concept
• Support triviality
• They have prepared a modified concept which they will no doubt publish in due course

• What is the reason for change? -  unwarranted fears and perception at low dose do not need a new concept
• Support individual doses, don't believe there are risks at low doses, support collective exposure
• Need to have some method of combining exposure of all sources.  Note acceptability is linked to the source, with less concern about natural and medical exposures.  Differences need to be made between these and man-made sources
• Agreed a need to eliminate the distinction between practices and intervention
• Need to be careful on terminology: action level, not limit
• Regulatory framework requires a clear value defining responsible control, using terminology such as 'upper bound for acceptable risk'
• This should be supported by subsidiary action levels; and a concept of "trivial risk" which carries no concern for health effects and hence such exposures should not be controlled within a regulatory system
• Lowest ALARA level of 1 mSv

• Used structured questionnaire to seek views.  Overwhelming support for the debate
• Current system comprehensive but complex: new system has the potential to become more understandable in principle, but needs careful development
• "Controllable dose" terminology is unhelpful: this is really a system for dose control
• Some minority concern at inclusion of medical exposures; particular concern at not jeopardising justified higher dose medical applications.
• Justification - the principle is sound but radiation is a small component, therefore we must align with society's approach to other hazards.  Particular wide agreement on the value of justification of individual medical exposures: we noted that all this aligned with Roger Clarke's presentation
• The broad 'decade' structure  (the ‘Clarke Scale’) was widely supported although the boundaries should be more fuzzy
• Some concern at removing dose limits, particularly for the public: noted agreement with the US position.
• The interpretation of what is trivial is linked to the nature of the benefits.  It is not clear that it is possible to choose a generic level.
• Optimisation: some members perceived this as being downgraded, but there is a broad consensus that optimisation is the cornerstone of radiation protection and it must remain central
• Collective dose: all agreed it was useful for occupational exposure but there was disagreement over its wider use for public exposure with very low dose and long timescales: perhaps some value in a 'local dose' concept of exposures above a defined value
• There is confusion over considering annual exposures and single event exposures in the same concept
• We queried the mechanism for seeking views from wider society, including NGOs, etc.   IRPA will only be getting views from within the profession!

Views from other societies covered the range already stated.   There is general support for continuing the debate.  Roger Clarke will now be taking this forward through ICRP later this year.

Overview

As ever, the IRPA Congress was considered to be a great success by attendees.  A good scientific programme, good progress by IRPA/National Societies, the usual networking opportunities, together with a Japanese culture and the highly relevant history of Hiroshima itself all contributed to making it a memorable meeting.
 

Roger Coates
Secretary, International Committee
October 2000
 

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IRPA-10 Proceedings, May 2000, Hiroshima

The IRPA-10 Proceedings have been published on CD. To order Proceedings (CD-ROM) and Programme & Abstracts (book) of the IRPA-10 Congress, please contact the address below:

Business Center for Academic Societies Japan
5-16-9 Honkomagome, Bunkyo-ku, TOKYO, JAPAN. Tel: +81-3-5814-5811 Fax: +81-3-5814-5822 E-mail: sub@bcasj.or.jp

Prices:
Proceedings (CD-ROM): 2,000 yen + Shipping
Programme & Abstracts (Book): 3,000 yen + Shipping

IRPA-10 homepage: http://www.oita-nhs.ac.jp/%7Eirpa10/

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