An Example of International Cooperation: WHO Cooperation in Radiopathology

Abstract

Just before her death, Irène Joliot Curie, Director of the Radium Institute, expressed a wish that the Curie Foundation should consider the establishment of a department to take care of victims of radiation accidents or radioactive contamination. This wish was fulfilled in 1956 by Director Jean Courtial, with the creation of the Department of Radiopathology. It was the first department in this field in the world; one other has since been established at Oak Ridge, U.S.A. Throughout a quarter of a century the Department of Radiopathology has received numerous victims of radiation accidents or radioactive contamination, coming for the most part from foreign countries. The Department itself has been able to treat more than half of the victims of lethal doses of whole-body radiation throughout the world. It developed its clinical research activities in close collaboration with experimental research carried out in the Department of Protection of the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA).