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James V. Neel and Yuri E. Dubrova: Cold War Debates and the Genetic Effects of Low-Dose Radiation

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Abstract

This article traces disagreements about the genetic effects of low-dose radiation exposure as waged by James Neel (1915–2000), a central figure in radiation studies of Japanese populations after World War II, and Yuri Dubrova (1955–), who analyzed the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident. In a 1996 article in Nature, Dubrova reported a statistically significant increase in the minisatellite (junk) DNA mutation rate in the children of parents who received a high dose of radiation from the Chernobyl accident, contradicting studies that found no significant inherited genetic effects among offspring of Japanese A-bomb survivors. Neel’s subsequent defense of his large-scale longitudinal studies of the genetic effects of ionizing radiation consolidated current scientific understandings of low-dose ionizing radiation. The article seeks to explain how the Hiroshima/Nagasaki data remain hegemonic in radiation studies, contextualizing the debate with attention to the perceived inferiority of Soviet genetic science during the Cold War.

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  1. Department of Anthropology Hale Building, Campus Box 233, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, CO, 80309-0233, USA

    Donna M. Goldstein & Magdalena E. Stawkowski

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  1. Donna M. Goldstein
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Correspondence to Donna M. Goldstein.

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Goldstein, D.M., Stawkowski, M.E. James V. Neel and Yuri E. Dubrova: Cold War Debates and the Genetic Effects of Low-Dose Radiation. J Hist Biol 48, 67–98 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-014-9385-0

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