POSITION STATEMENT OF THE HEALTH PHYSICS SOCIETY*

The Health Physics Society recommends that standards and regulations for radiation safety of the general public be based on the current scientific consensus represented in recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP 1991) and the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP 1993). The Society’s principal recommendations about radiation safety standards for the public are: 1. Justifiable sources of radiation exposures are those that result in an overall net benefit to society. 2. Radiation exposures of the public from controllable sources1 should be maintained as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA), economic and social factors being taken into account. However, ALARA should not be quantified with respect to dose goals or monetary cost, e.g., dollars per person-sievert. 3. Public radiation safety standards should be based on specified values of dose rather than hypothetical estimates of risk. These standards should be expressed as an effective dose2 resulting from all exposure pathways. 4. The sum of effective dose(s) to individual members of the public from exposure to controllable sources—with the exception of occupational exposure, accidental releases, and indoor radon3— normally should be limited to 1 mSv in any year. In special (infrequent) circumstances, an effective dose up to 5 mSv in a year may be permitted