Consideration of measurements and calculations involved in assessment of the effects of human exposure to low doses of ionizing radiation and other mutagens

Abstract

Theoretical considerations previously presented are reviewed demonstrating that current methodologies designed to measure environmental mutagenesis contributing to human disease measure only a small fraction of such insults. In the absence of an adequate theoretical approach, a new experimental method has been developed which in the case of X-irradiation demonstrates approximately 100-fold more mutations than are detected by other approaches. There is reason to expect major contributions to preventive medicine from these developments.