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Radioactive decay
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==Early health dangers== {{main|Ionizing radiation}} [[File:Crookes tube xray experiment.jpg|thumb|upright=1.8|Taking an X-ray image with early [[Crookes tube]] apparatus in 1896. The Crookes tube is visible in the centre. The standing man is viewing his hand with a [[fluoroscope]] screen; this was a common way of setting up the tube. No precautions against radiation exposure are being taken; its hazards were not known at the time.]] The dangers of [[ionizing radiation]] due to radioactivity and X-rays were not immediately recognized. ===X-rays=== The discovery of X‑rays by [[Wilhelm Röntgen]] in 1895 led to widespread experimentation by scientists, physicians, and inventors. Many people began recounting stories of burns, hair loss and worse in technical journals as early as 1896. In February of that year, Professor Daniel and Dr. Dudley of [[Vanderbilt University]] performed an experiment involving X-raying Dudley's head that resulted in his hair loss. A report by Dr. H.D. Hawks, of his suffering severe hand and chest burns in an X-ray demonstration, was the first of many other reports in ''Electrical Review''.<ref name="SansareKhanna2011">{{cite journal |last1=Sansare |first1=K. |last2=Khanna |first2=V. |last3=Karjodkar |first3=F. |title=Early victims of X-rays: a tribute and current perception |journal=Dentomaxillofacial Radiology |volume=40 |issue=2 |year=2011 |pages=123–125 |issn=0250-832X |doi=10.1259/dmfr/73488299 |pmc=3520298 |pmid=21239576}}</ref> Other experimenters, including [[Elihu Thomson]] and [[Nikola Tesla]], also reported burns. Thomson deliberately exposed a finger to an X-ray tube over a period of time and suffered pain, swelling, and blistering.<ref name="physics.isu.edu">{{Cite web |url=http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/50yrs.htm |title=Ronald L. Kathern and Paul L. Ziemer, he First Fifty Years of Radiation Protection, physics.isu.edu |access-date=25 November 2013 |archive-date=12 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170912164652/http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/50yrs.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> Other effects, including ultraviolet rays and ozone, were sometimes blamed for the damage,<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Nikola Tesla and the Discovery of X-rays |journal=RadioGraphics |date=July 2008 |volume=28 |issue=4 |pmid=18635636 |pages=1189–92 |doi=10.1148/rg.284075206 |last1=Hrabak |first1=M. |last2=Padovan |first2=R.S. |last3=Kralik |first3=M. |last4=Ozretic |first4=D. |last5=Potocki |first5=K.|doi-access=free }}</ref> and many physicians still claimed that there were no effects from X-ray exposure at all.<ref name="physics.isu.edu" /> Despite this, there were some early systematic hazard investigations, and as early as 1902 [[William Herbert Rollins]] wrote almost despairingly that his warnings about the dangers involved in the careless use of X-rays were not being heeded, either by industry or by his colleagues. By this time, Rollins had proved that X-rays could kill experimental animals, could cause a pregnant guinea pig to abort, and that they could kill a foetus. He also stressed that "animals vary in susceptibility to the external action of X-light" and warned that these differences be considered when patients were treated by means of X-rays.{{citation needed|date=January 2023}} ===Radioactive substances=== [[File:Periodic Table Stability & Radioactivity.svg|upright=1.8|right|thumb |Radioactivity is characteristic of elements with large atomic numbers. Elements with at least one stable isotope are shown in light blue. Green shows elements of which the most stable isotope has a half-life measured in millions of years. Yellow and orange are progressively less stable, with half-lives in thousands or hundreds of years, down toward one day. Red and purple show highly and extremely radioactive elements where the most stable isotopes exhibit half-lives measured on the order of one day and much less.]] However, the biological effects of radiation due to radioactive substances were less easy to gauge. This gave the opportunity for many physicians and corporations to market radioactive substances as [[patent medicine]]s. Examples were radium [[enema]] treatments, and radium-containing waters to be drunk as tonics. Marie Curie protested against this sort of treatment, warning that "radium is dangerous in untrained hands".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rentetzi |first1=Maria |title=Marie Curie and the perils in radium |journal=Physics Today |date=7 November 2017 |issue=11 |page=30676 |doi=10.1063/PT.6.4.20171107a |bibcode=2017PhT..2017k0676R |url=https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.4.20171107a/full/ |access-date=3 May 2022|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Curie later died from [[aplastic anaemia]], likely caused by exposure to ionizing radiation. By the 1930s, after a number of cases of bone necrosis and death of radium treatment enthusiasts, radium-containing medicinal products had been largely removed from the market ([[radioactive quackery]]). ===Radiation protection=== {{main|Radiation protection}} {{see also|Sievert|Ionizing radiation}} Only a year after [[Wilhelm Röntgen|Röntgen]]'s discovery of X-rays, the American engineer [[Wolfram Conrad Fuchs|Wolfram Fuchs]] (1896) gave what is probably the first protection advice, but it was not until 1925 that the first [[International Congress of Radiology]] (ICR) was held and considered establishing international protection standards. The effects of radiation on genes, including the effect of cancer risk, were recognized much later. In 1927, [[Hermann Joseph Muller]] published research showing genetic effects and, in 1946, was awarded the [[Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine]] for his findings. The second ICR was held in Stockholm in 1928 and proposed the adoption of the [[Roentgen (unit)|röntgen]] unit, and the [[International X-ray and Radium Protection Committee]] (IXRPC) was formed. [[Rolf Maximilian Sievert|Rolf Sievert]] was named chairman, but a driving force was [[G. W. C. Kaye|George Kaye]] of the British [[National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom)|National Physical Laboratory]]. The committee met in 1931, 1934, and 1937. After [[World War II]], the increased range and quantity of radioactive substances being handled as a result of military and civil nuclear programs led to large groups of occupational workers and the public being potentially exposed to harmful levels of ionising radiation. This was considered at the first post-war ICR convened in London in 1950, when the present [[International Commission on Radiological Protection]] (ICRP) was born.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Clarke|first=R.H.|author2=J. Valentin|title=The History of ICRP and the Evolution of its Policies|journal=Annals of the ICRP|year=2009|volume=39|series=ICRP Publication 109|issue=1|pages=75–110|doi=10.1016/j.icrp.2009.07.009|s2cid=71278114|url=http://www.icrp.org/docs/The%20History%20of%20ICRP%20and%20the%20Evolution%20of%20its%20Policies.pdf|access-date=12 May 2012}}</ref> Since then the ICRP has developed the present international system of radiation protection, covering all aspects of radiation hazards. In 2020, Hauptmann and another 15 international researchers from eight nations (among them: Institutes of Biostatistics, Registry Research, Centers of Cancer Epidemiology, Radiation Epidemiology, and also the [[National Cancer Institute|U.S. National Cancer Institute]] (NCI), [[International Agency for Research on Cancer]] (IARC) and the [[Radiation Effects Research Foundation|Radiation Effects Research Foundation of Hiroshima]]) studied definitively through [[meta-analysis]] the damage resulting from the "low doses" that have afflicted survivors of the [[atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki]] and also in numerous [[Nuclear and radiation accidents and incidents|accidents at nuclear plants]] that have occurred. These scientists reported, in ''JNCI Monographs: Epidemiological Studies of Low Dose Ionizing Radiation and Cancer Risk'', that the new epidemiological studies directly support excess cancer risks from low-dose ionizing radiation.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Daniels |first1=M. |display-authors=et al. |title=Epidemiological Studies of Low-Dose Ionizing Radiation and Cancer: Summary Bias Assessment and Meta-Analysis.|journal=J Natl Cancer Inst Monogr|volume=56 |issue=July 1 |year=2020 |pages=188–200|issn=1434-6001 |doi=10.1093/jncimonographs/lgaa010|pmid=32657347 |pmc=8454205 }}</ref> In 2021, Italian researcher Sebastiano Venturi reported the first correlations between radio-caesium and [[pancreatic cancer]] with the role of [[caesium]] in biology, in pancreatitis and in diabetes of pancreatic origin.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Venturi |first1=Sebastiano |title=Cesium in Biology, Pancreatic Cancer, and Controversy in High and Low Radiation Exposure Damage – Scientific, Environmental, Geopolitical, and Economic Aspects |journal=International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health |date=January 2021 |volume=18 |issue=17 |pages=8934 | pmid=34501532 |doi=10.3390/ijerph18178934 |pmc=8431133 |language=en|doi-access=free }} [[File:CC-BY icon.svg|50px]] Text was copied from this source, which is available under a [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License].</ref>
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