NUCLEAR ACTIVITIES: IONISING RADIATION AND HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL RISKS

ASN remains particularly attentive to the correct functioning of the occupational exposure monitoring system set up by IRSN (SISERI), in that the statistics provided constitute valuable national indicators of trends in occupational exposure and are useful in assessing the effectiveness of the measures taken by the licensees to implement the optimisation principle. As in the preceding years, the IRSN-published study of worker exposure in 2010 confirms the stabilisation at a low level of the number of monitored workers whose annual dose exceeded 20 mSv, and the stabilisation at a low level of the collective dose following the reduction that began in 1996. From 2012, owing to the probable reduction in the regulatory exposure dose limit for the lens of the eye, particular attention will need to be given to monitoring this specific exposure in health professionals associated with interventional practices.

The second national action plan for radon-related risks, published in November 2011, highlights the need to develop screening of radon exposure in dwellings. For ASN, the expected publication of new regulations on this subject should be an opportunity to compile all radon exposure data in a single national system comprising the results of measurements taken in premises open to the public, the workplace and dwellings.

ASN also remains attentive to the information produced by the national observatory of patient exposure, run by InVS and IRSN, whose first publication (April 2010) confirmed that, as in the other developed countries, the doses delivered to patients during diagnostic examinations was on the rise in France. Improvements of the precision of this monitoring system, involving the stakeholders, would however appear to be necessary.

The question of hypersensitivity to ionising radiation still requires particular attention in terms of applied research at both national and international level, with a view to rapidly devising a radiosensitivity test for patients, especially prior to radiotherapy treatment. In the field of low doses, this question must also continue to be examined, especially owing to the largescale use of breast cancer screening using mammography.

Finally, ASN has decided in 2012 to implement pluralistic and effective monitoring of the actions initiated at the national level in response to the 2011 recommendations concerning the link between child leukaemia and environmental factors.