National Academy of Sciences, and the Committee of the British Medical Research Council. In the mid-1950s, one major international and several national scientific bodies came into existence, including the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), the Committee on the Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation (the BEAR committee renamed the Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation in 1972) set up by the U.S. In the late 1940s, the mouse was chosen as the primary surrogate for assessing the genetic radiosensitivity of humans, and extensive studies were initiated in different research centers in the United States, England, and Japan.
The ABCC was renamed the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in 1976. Thus came into existence the genetics program in Hiroshima and Nagasaki under the auspices of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC), the newly formed joint agency of the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare and the U.S. In spite of these facts, the conference feels that this unique possibility for demonstrating genetic effects caused by atomic radiation should not be lost …” (NRC 1947). In contrast to laboratory data, this material is too much influenced by extraneous variables and too little adapted to disclosing genetic effects. National Research Council to assess the program of research on the heritable effects of radiation to be undertaken in Japan, the leading geneticists voted unanimously to record the following expression of their attitude toward the program: “Although there is every reason to infer that genetic effects can be produced and have been produced in man by atomic radiation, nevertheless the conference wishes to make it clear that it cannot guarantee significant results from this or any other study on the Japanese material. In June 1947, at the meeting of the Conference on Genetics convened by the Committee on Atomic Casualties of the U.S. However, widespread and serious concern over the possible adverse genetic effects of exposure of large numbers of people to low levels of radiation first arose in the aftermath of the detonation of atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, some 20 years after the discoveries of the mutagenic effects of X-rays. The discoveries by Muller (1927) of the mutagenic effects of X-rays in fruit flies ( Drosophila) and by Stadler (1928a, 1928b) of similar effects in barley and maize, and the subsequent extension of these findings to other types of ionizing radiation (and also to ultraviolet) and other organisms, conclusively established the genetic damage-inducing effects of radiation. Naturally occurring mutations in somatic and germ cells contribute respectively to cancers and heritable genetic diseases ( i.e., hereditary diseases).