IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB001552100

Radiation, Cancer, and Mutation in the Atomic Age (2015)

Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences
Volume: 45, no. 1
Issue: 1
Pages: 14-48
Publication date: 2015
Language: English

DOI: 10.1525/hsns.2015.45.1.14

Publication Date: 2015
Edition Details: Part of a Series: A Cell-Based Epistemology: Human Genetics in The Era of Biomedicine

Outside Links

PubMed

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Cancer; tumors Disease and diseases Mutation Medicine 20th century, late United States

Following World War II, the publication of accounts such as John Hersey's Hiroshima (1946) documented the devastating effects of atomic weaponry on inhabitants of the two Japanese cities targeted by atomic bombs. Yet the American government presented a positive image of the atom's benefits for its citizens in peacetime. In the late 1940s and 1950s, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission sought to develop nuclear medicine and nuclear energy alongside its continued production and testing of atomic weapons. In both its civilian and military endeavors, the agency maintained that its safety guidelines were sufficient to protect workers and the general population from dangerous exposures to ionizing radiation. In the 1950s, mounting concerns about the hazards of low-level radiation exposure, particularly from atomic weapons fallout, raised the stakes of understanding and protecting against the health hazards of ionizing radiation. Radiological protection guidelines focused on preventing the somatic effects of radiation---leukemia, cancer, and life-shortening---for which experts postulated a safety threshold. By contrast, the genetic effects of ionizing radiation on an individual's fertility and gametes appeared to be dose-dependent even at the lowest levels. Geneticists challenged the perceived gap between somatic and genetic effects of radiation by arguing that radiation-induced mutations play a role in diseases, especially cancer. In doing so, they also contested the Commission's portrayal of a safe atomic future. This article examines how concerns over low-level radiation from fallout facilitated acceptance of the then-controversial somatic mutation theory of carcinogenesis, which became an enduring feature of cancer biology.

...More

Included in

Article Santesmases, María Jesús; Suárez-Díaz, Edna (2015) A Cell-Based Epistemology: Human Genetics in the Era of Biomedicine. Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (pp. 1-13). unapi

Citation URI

data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB001552100

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Sharma, Padmanee; Allison, James P.; (2012)
Lloyd J. Old (1933--2011) (/p/isis/citation/CBB001320473/)

Article Parascandola, Mark; (2002)
Uncertain Science and a Failure of Trust: The NIH Radioepidemiologic Tables and Compensation for Radiation-Induced Cancer (/p/isis/citation/CBB000301104/)

Thesis Krueger, Gretchen Marie; (2003)
“A Cure is Near”: Children, Families, and Cancer in America, 1945--1980 (/p/isis/citation/CBB001562008/)

Book Cornwall, Claudia; (2013)
Catching Cancer: The Quest for Its Viral and Bacterial Causes (/p/isis/citation/CBB001213235/)

Article Thagard, Paul; (2002)
Curing cancer? Patrick Lee's Path to the Reovirus Treatment (/p/isis/citation/CBB000300718/)

Thesis Bowers, Neil Thomas; (2006)
A Historical Discourse Analysis of the Cancerous and Non-Cancerous Body in Secondary Biology Textbooks (/p/isis/citation/CBB001560997/)

Article Clow, Barbara; (2001)
Who's Afraid of Susan Sontag? or, the Myths and Metaphors of Cancer Reconsidered (/p/isis/citation/CBB000770469/)

Chapter Keating, Peter; Cambrosio, Alberto; (2005)
The Production of Biomedical Measures: Three Platforms for Quantifying Cancer Pathology (/p/isis/citation/CBB000772035/)

Article Read, Jennifer; Hardy, Susan; Corones, Anthony; (2011)
Contested Surveillance: Risk, Safety, and Cervical Screening in Australia (/p/isis/citation/CBB001232067/)

Article Teixeira, Luiz Antonio; (2010)
O controle do câncer no Brasil na primeira metade do século XX (/p/isis/citation/CBB001420480/)

Article Cantor, David; (2007)
Introduction: Cancer Control and Prevention in the Twentieth Century (/p/isis/citation/CBB000700694/)

Article Hogan, Andrew J.; (2015)
Disrupting Genetic Dogma: Bridging Cytogenetics and Molecular Biology in Fragile X Research (/p/isis/citation/CBB001552105/)

Article Quirke, Viviane; (2014)
Targeting the American Market for Medicines, ca. 1950s–1970s: ICI and Rhône-Poulenc Compared (/p/isis/citation/CBB001202354/)

Chapter Rohrer, Robin L.; (2009)
Visiting Children with Cancer: The Parental Experience of the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, 1995--2005 (/p/isis/citation/CBB001031538/)

Article Cantor, David; (2006)
Cancer, Quackery and the Vernacular Meanings of Hope in 1950s America (/p/isis/citation/CBB000671054/)

Article Cantor, David; (2012)
Between Prevention and Therapy: Gio Batta Gori and the National Cancer Institute's Diet, Nutrition and Cancer Programme, 1974--1978 (/p/isis/citation/CBB001252058/)

Article Anya Plutynski; (2021)
Is cancer a matter of luck? (/p/isis/citation/CBB401173230/)

Article Strauss, Bernard S.; (2000)
The stability of the genome and the genetic instability of tumors (/p/isis/citation/CBB000111074/)

Article Creager, Angela N. H.; (2007)
Adaptation or Selection? Old Issues and New Stakes in the Postwar Debates over Bacterial Drug Resistance (/p/isis/citation/CBB000770761/)

Book Wapner, Jessica; (2013)
The Philadelphia Chromosome: A Mutant Gene and the Quest to Cure Cancer at the Genetic Level (/p/isis/citation/CBB001213249/)