Radiation

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Radiation

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Radiation

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Radiation

7 Authority record results for Radiation

7 results directly related Exclude narrower terms

Hayes, Teresa

  • http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n2014189446
  • Person
  • 1953-

Teresa Gray Hayes, MD, Ph.D. is an oncologist and an associate professor in hematology and oncology at Baylor College of Medicine. She earned both a Ph.D. and an MD from New York University School of Medicine, in 1981 and 1982, respectively

Miller, Robert W.

  • http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n82090380
  • Person
  • 1921-2006

Dr. Robert Warwick Miller was born on September 29, 1921 in Brooklyn, New York(1). Miller was the eldest of two sons. Inspired by his parents’ passion for medicine as well as his uncle’s successful hospital, Miller had always wanted to become a physician(2). He attended the University of Pennsylvania for both his bachelor's and medical degrees(3). Miller greatly enjoyed medical school, particularly because they “encouraged innovation” in their students(4). He trained in pediatrics during his residency at the Buffalo Children’s Hospital. After completing his residency, Miller did not feel completely comfortable going immediately into a medical practice and decided that he needed to further his education(5). He graduated during a time in the medical community when specializing in a certain type of medicine was the general standard, but Miller was not interested in focusing on a narrow system or area of the body(6). Instead, Miller completed one year of post doctrinal training in radiation biology and radiation medicine for the Atomic Energy Commission at the University of Rochester, Case Western Reserve and Duke Universities(7). This was a new field that was attempting to discover the various effects of radiation on all parts of the body(8).

At the end of his training in radiation medicine, Miller was drafted into the army and assigned as a Captain to the Atomic Energy Project at the University of Rochester(9). While he was there, Miller “expressed his concern over the frequent use of fluoroscopy for examining young children, which led to a heated interdepartmental conference that resulted in more conservative radiological procedures, especially for children”(10). After noticing this, Miller became particularly interested in how radiation affects children(11).

At the end of his military tour in Rochester, Miller heard that two of the doctors he worked with would be conducting some research with the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) in Hiroshima. Miller thought this might be a perfect field study to learn more about how radiation affects young children, babies, and fetuses(12). Miller joined the ABCC as the chief ABCC Hiroshima’s children’s clinic(13). Miller and others examined children who survived the bombing after a Japanese pediatrician(14). They examined about 20 children a day, all between the ages of 9 and 19(15). Miller greatly enjoyed his time in Hiroshima and described it “it was a joyous time...it was like being 7 years old again and discovering many fascinating things around me”(16). After the work for the ABCC was complete, Miller stayed in Hiroshima for 6 more months to complete his pediatric study and to marry his wife(17). Miller met his wife, Haruko, at the ABCC where she was a nurse. Haruko also went by the nickname Holly(18). They were married at the U. S. Consulate in Kobe on February 21, 1955. They stayed in Hiroshima to complete Miller’s study of pediatric radiation before heading home to the United States. From his study, Miller concluded that “exposure to radiation before birth increased the incidence of mental retardation in children and small head circumference”(19). He also concluded that the closer the fetus is to the bomb’s epicenter, the greater risk there is for the child to have or develop health issues(20).

After his time in Hiroshima, Miller stayed on with the ABCC as a Professional Associate at the ABCC office in the National Academy of Sciences where he was responsible for recruiting staff and providing medical advice to the Chairman of the Division of Medical Sciences(21). While he was there, the ABCC proposed a second course of study of children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but they needed a Chief of Pediatrics to help plan and institute the study(22). Miller agreed to attend the University of Michigan to get his doctorate in public health with the study as the research for his dissertation(23). This also served to train Miller in epidemiology. After graduating with his doctorate, Miller took the position as the Chief of the Epidemiology Branch at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in 1961, where he remained for much of the rest of his career(24).

As the Chief of the Epidemiology Branch of the National Cancer Institute, Miller devoted himself to studying two different things: the link between cancer and congenital anomalies, and pediatric cancer epidemiology(25). To study the link between cancer and congenital anomalies, Miller conducted studies of different parings of cancers with genetic diseases. He studied the link between Wilms tumor and Aniridia, Down syndrome and leukemia, Ataxia-telangiectasia and leukemia and many more. In these studies, Miller concludes that there does seem to be a link between certain genetic disorders and certain types of cancer(26). In 1976, Dr. Miller became the Chief of the Clinical Epidemiology Branch of the National Cancer Institute(27). Throughout his career, Miller has had the opportunity to go to different sites around the world where people were exposed to vast amounts of radiation(28). He went to study Dioxin in Seveso, Italy as well as participating in the Air Force Agent Orange Study. He was able to go back to Hiroshima again, as well as Chernobyl and the Marshall Islands(29).

Dr. Miller was the Chief of the Clinical Epidemiology Branch of the National Cancer Institute until he retired in 1994(30). Throughout his career, Miller conducted a wide variety of studies and published most of his findings. When he retired in 1994, he was named a scientist emeritus at the National Cancer Institute and continued his research up until the year before his death(31). Dr. Miller died of colon cancer at his home on February 23, 2006 at the age of 84(32).

Radiation Effects Research Foundation

  • http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n82166445
  • Corporate body
  • 1947-0000

In November 1946, President Harry S. Truman issued a directive authorizing the NAS-NRC to undertake the long-term study of the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just prior to Truman's directive, a five-man commission, operating under the auspices of the National Research Council's Division of Medical Sciences and calling itself the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, had been sent to Japan to conduct a preliminary survey of the situation.
The Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) was officially established under the direction of the Research Council's Division of Medical Sciences in March 1947. The ABCC, which was responsible for carrying out research in the field, was overseen by the division's Committee on Atomic Casualties, which later became the Advisory Committee on ABCC. Operations were funded by the newly created Atomic Energy Commission's Biology and Medicine Division.
The survey findings of the original five-man NAS-NRC commission, communicated in December 1946, made up the ABCC's first report. The first research program proper set up by the ABCC was a hematological study, begun under James V. Neel in March 1947. By 1950, the ABCC had a number of departments in operation, and had established a series of studies that would include research on radiation cataracts, leukemia and other cancers, survivors' aging and mortality rates, sex ratios of survivors' offspring, and genetics.
Logistical and organizational problems of the early ABCC were such that by 1955 it appeared that the program would have to be terminated. Toward the end of 1955, a committee under the direction of NAS Member Thomas Francis was sent to Japan to assess the ABCC and its programs; on the committee's recommendation a new and more effective study program was implemented. By 1957 George B. Darling of Yale University was made director, and it was under his long leadership -- ending only in 1972 -- that the ABCC was able to reorient and stabilize its operations. An Adult Health Study involving biennial examinations of survivors was soon established, followed not long after by new cytogenetic studies. It was also under Darling's leadership that the ABCC instituted bilingual technical protocols and increased the participation of the Japanese National Institute of Health in ABCC studies.
By the early 1970s, constraints imposed by increased operating costs began to make themselves felt. In response to requests that the Japanese Government increase its support of the ABCC, a new, binational private foundation, the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF), was negotiated into existence, and in 1975 it replaced the ABCC while continuing the latter's programs.
[Original description by NAS Archives]

The Japanese Imperial Army and Navy initiated an investigation immediately after the August, 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Right after the conclusion of the war on August 15, 1945, the Special Commission for Investigating Effects of the Atomic Bomb was established in the academic research council on September 14 of the same year. Greatly influenced by the allied forces, academic research organizations spearheaded investigations in a variety of fields. On the other hand, while U.S. President Harry S. Truman ordered the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) to promptly conduct an investigation into the effects of the bombing, on September 4 a U.S. Army medical investigation team held a meeting in Tokyo and met with the Japanese. Against this backdrop, in the same month The Armed Forces Joint Commission for Investigating Effects of the Atomic Bomb in Japan was organized. This Commission finished its investigation in December of that year.
In May, 1946, U.S. Army Colonel Ashley W. Oughterson, one of the leaders of the U.S. military joint investigation team, asked US Army Surgeon General Norman T. Kirk to recommend to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - National Research Council (NRC) the planning of continuous research regarding the effects of atomic bombs on the human body. With this, NRC Department of Medical Science (DMS) chair Lewis H. Weed convened a conference of the U.S. Navy, public health authorities, the State Department and the American Cancer Society, and they decided to dispatch to Japan an onsite investigative team of four, Austin M. Brues, Paul S. Henshaw, Melvin A. Block and James V. Neel in October of that year. Also, before that the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was established as an organ of the federal government in August, 1946 with responsibility for both military and civilian nuclear development in the United States. The AEC took over the functions of the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb.
In November, 1946, with President Truman approving a long term investigation of atomic bomb injuries, the Committee of Atomic Casualties (CAC) was established in the United States National Research Council medical subcommittee with funding from the AEC, and the first meeting was held in March, 1947 (CAC was later reorganized into the Advisory Committee on ABCC). Also, the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) was established based on the CAC and with a focus on the local investigative team of Austin M. Brues and others, who had already begun their work in Japan. The ABCC started operations temporarily based in the Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital.
While the initial main topics for ABCC were establishing a research system and problems in setting up a laboratory, regarding the former, in June, 1947 ABCC members and Masao Tsuzuki visited the Ministry of Health and Welfare Vaccination Bureau and the National Institute of Health (NIH) to request cooperation. As a result, in January, 1948 the NIH officially decided to participate in the ABCC. Further, in the same month it was decided to use the Ujina Gaisenkan as a research facility (Ujina Laboratory). Then Army Lieutenant Colonel Carl F. Tessmer became the first ABCC director in March, 1948, and that July an ABCC Nagasaki laboratory was established in the Nagasaki Medical College Hospital. In the same month facilities were completed in Kure as well (closed in 1953).
In July 1949, there was an opening ceremony for the Ujina Laboratory and the Kure facility with the participants including Crawford F. Sams, director of the Public Health and Welfare Section and Dr. Harry C. Kelly of the Economic and Scientific Section of General Headquarters, Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (GHQ / SCAP). While the Ujina Laboratory was a temporary facility, after many twists and turns it was decided to build a permanent laboratory in Hijiyama. Work began in the same month and was completed in November, 1950. The transfer from Ujina Laboratory finished in 1951.
With the preparation of such a research environment, there was a series of investigations and research from 1949, including atomic bomb victim population surveys, leukemia surveys, adult medical surveys, nationwide atomic bomb survivor ancillary surveys in the national census, surveys of children exposed to the atomic bomb in utero and death / cause of death surveys. In September, 1951, the Hiroshima Medical Society and the ABCC held the Meeting to Read Research Papers on the Effects of the Atomic Bomb, and with the cooperation of the Science Council of Japan an ABCC report meeting was held in Tokyo in January, 1952.
In 1955, a special committee of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences National Research Council headed by professor Thomas Francis, Jr. of the University of Michigan reviewed the ABCC’s research, and the subsequent report (the Francis Report) recommended a Comprehensive Research Plan based on a clearly defined fixed group. With this recommendation, in 1957 director George B. Darling reformed the research program, and a system for U.S. – Japan joint research involving such agencies as the NIH was established during his term.
 In July, 1957, a system was established to publicly announce research plans and results. Technical Reports were prepared in both Japanese and English and distributed to ABCC employees, advisors, councils and institutions, governments and related private sector locations. Also, Annual Reports were published bilingually from 1957. There were also efforts to improve preservation and use of materials and data collected in the Japan – U.S. joint research.
Although most ABCC management expenses from its founding were covered by funding from the biomedical program of the AEC, an organ of the American federal government, due to such problems as contributions from Japan and the U.S., and securing employees to provide expert guidance, in the latter half of the 1960s discussion regarding the need to restructure the ABCC emerged. There were also increasing doubts about the U.S. led research system. ABCC restructuring gained the approval of concerned organizations in the U.S., and discussion between Japanese and American governmental authorities took place between 1972 and 1974. As a result, in December, 1974 an agreement was signed that provided for the establishment of a new laboratory as a legally incorporated foundation. In March, 1975 an ABCC scientific reconsideration special committee report was prepared, and the Commission closed on the last day of the month. On April 1, the following day, the Radiation Effects Research Foundation was founded as a new research organization to continue the investigation and research programs of the ABCC with the purpose of establishing a “contribution with peaceful purposes to the health of the human race and the health maintenance and welfare of atomic bomb survivors through the investigation and research into the medical effects of radiation on humans and resulting illnesses.”
[Additional description by JSPS Research Project]

Bowers, John Z.

  • https://lccn.loc.gov/n79007090
  • Person
  • 1913-1993

John Zimmerman Bowers, MD served as Deputy Director of the Biology and Medicine Division of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1947 to 1950. He had previously studied pathology under Dr. Shields Warren, and in 1949 he joined Dr. Warren in Japan studying the effects of radiation on atomic bomb survivors.

Dr. Bowers would go on to a career in medical education, including serving as Dean at the University of Utah and University of Wisconsin medical schools and President of the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation.

He maintained strong relationships and interest in medicine and medical education in Asia. In the 1980s he wrote historical accounts of the ABBC and RERF.

More information about Dr. Bowers is available in the MS 242 Control Folder.

Texas Hadassah Medical Research Foundation

  • Corporate body
  • 1991-

The Texas Hadassah Medical Research Foundation was part of Baylor College of Medicine during the late-1990s and early 2000s. The organization, led in part by Dr. Armin Weinberg, provided medical supplies, cross-cultural collaboration and professional exchanges with Israel, Palestine, Kazakhstan, Russia, and other nations. An important part of its work dealt with radiation effects and events, like Chernobyl and atomic test sites in Kazakhstan. The organization developed the Cancer Registry of survivors of radiation events.

ABAA KAKEN

  • Corporate body
  • 2016

The ABAA KAKEN group was began by Professor Masahito Ando, a renowned expert in Archival Science in Japan. The group completed a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) grant-in-aid research project titled "The Study on Developing Of A Digital Archive Relating To Atomic-Bomb Radiation Effect On The Human Body." The ultimate goal was to build a digital archive of Atomic-Bomb related documents. TMC Library with its unique collection of personal papers of ABCC -related scientists is a core member of the international part of the project and also a partner in international collaborative effort to make digitized documents available online for researchers around the world. The TMC Library agreed to preserve the work product of the group for posterity.