PubMed · 1597378
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R J Vetter. 1992. Health physics training programs.. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1597378/
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Health Physics began at the University of Chicago as a science and profession during the early World War II years. It was initiated by Drs. A.H. Compton and R.S. Stone, director and associate director, respectively, of the early Plutonium Project cryptically called the Metallurgical Laboratory. It was to be a science and a profession to protect radiation workers and members of the public from exposure to ionizing radiation. It succeeded to some extent in this objective but during the past decade in the United States, it has reverted into an organization primarily to protect the nuclear industry from liability resulting from radiation exposure.
This paper summarizes how the problems of fallout, genetics, radioactive waste, and regulatory control of radiation were perceived by Dunning, Straub, Taylor, and others in 1955 at the inaugural meeting of the Health Physics Society. It was stated that health physicists had a great opportunity to resolve these problems and to avoid past mistakes. Throughout the 1950s, health physicists made major contributions to elucidating the fallout problem and contributed to its resolution, and it can be considered a success story. Waste disposal is not considered to be a success to date. A major difference has been the lack of political will to grapple with a perceived "no win" situation. The evolution of radiation limits is briefly traced over the past 37 y from voluntary standards to rigorously enforced regulations demanded by society. This paper speculates that the changing international scene makes the United States the pre-eminent nuclear power which will challenge future health physicists to maintain a balance between the control of radioactive material and its peaceful applications.
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