title: James V. Neel and Yuri E. Dubrova: Cold War debates and the genetic effects of low-dose radiation.
abstract: This article traces disagreements about the genetic effects of low-dose radiation exposure as waged by James Neel (1915-2000), a central figure in radiation studies of Japanese populations after World War II, and Yuri Dubrova (1955-), who analyzed the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident. In a 1996 article in Nature, Dubrova reported a statistically significant increase in the minisatellite (junk) DNA mutation rate in the children of parents who received a high dose of radiation from the Chernobyl accident, contradicting studies that found no significant inherited genetic effects among offspring of Japanese A-bomb survivors. Neel's subsequent defense of his large-scale longitudinal studies of the genetic effects of ionizing radiation consolidated current scientific understandings of low-dose ionizing radiation. The article seeks to explain how the Hiroshima/Nagasaki data remain hegemonic in radiation studies, contextualizing the debate with attention to the perceived inferiority of Soviet genetic science during the Cold War.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology Hale Building, Campus Box 233, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, CO, 80309-0233, USA, donna.goldstein@colorado.edu.
authors.forename: Donna M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Goldstein
authors.forename: Magdalena E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Stawkowski
mesh_terms: D047852:Chernobyl Nuclear Accident; D004276:DNA, Satellite / Q000528:radiation effects*; D004307:Dose-Response Relationship, Radiation; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D018598:Minisatellite Repeats / Q000528:radiation effects; D009154:Mutation / Q000528:radiation effects; D011831:Radiation Genetics / Q000266:history*; D014586:USSR; D014455:Ukraine; D014481:United States; D047789:World War II
chemical_list: D004276:DNA, Satellite