IRPA President, Kenneth Kase has submitted a consolidated set of comments on the Basic Safety Standards revision to the IAEA on behalf of the Associate Societies that have provided input. These comments can be found on the IRPA Web Site Publications, IRPA Reports and Documents page. Draft 3.0 of the BSS can be found on the IAEA web site: http://www-ns.iaea.org/downloads/standards/drafts/ds379.pdf.

Please direct any questions or comments to Dr. Kase, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

A new document on mobile phone use is now available on the International Commission on Non Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) website. The note on the Interphone publication "Brain tumour risk in relation to mobile telephone use: results of the INTERPHONE international case-control study" can be found at http://www.icnirp.org/activities.htm.

For additional information, contact Karine Chabrel, Deputy Secretary ICNIRP,  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

The Second IRPA International Workshop on Radiation Protection Culture will be held at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Charleston, South Carolina, USA on 10 – 11 February 2011. This will follow immediately the 2011 Midyear Topical Meeting of the Health Physics Society, 6 – 9 February 2011 at the same location (http://hps.org/meetings/meeting27.html). Information about registration and accommodation booking for both the HPS meeting and the IRPA Workshop will be available on the IRPA website later this year.

The outcome of the First Workshop held in Paris in December 2009 (see the report from the First Workshop) should be studied by all IRPA Associate Societies. I expect that reactions, comments and new ideas will be discussed at the Associate Society Forums held this year at the 4 IRPA Regional Congresses in Tokyo, Helsinki, Nairobi and Medellin.

The 2nd Workshop will build on the outcome of the First Workshop and the discussions on Radiation Protection Culture at the Associate Society Forums. I encourage all IRPA Associate Societies, especially those in the Americas, to send one or two delegates to participate in this Workshop so that the final IRPA document on Radiation Protection Culture will include the perspective of all Associate Societies.

Kenneth Kase, President

For several years, Geoff Webb, who was President of IRPA from 2000 to 2004, has been working on a history of IRPA in his role as Archivist and Historian. Using records provided by the US Health Physics Society, the UK Society for Radiological Protection, past IRPA Presidents and Officers, Geoff has put together a chronological record of the events and meetings leading up to the formation of IRPA in 1964.  Contributions by Rupprecht Maushart and Chris Huyskens, and personal recollections from Bo Lindell have been particularly valuable.  Geoff traces the development of the organization from the first Congress in Rome in 1966 up to the tenth Congress in Hiroshima in the year 2000. To mark the completion of the first full draft of the History Geoff will make a presentation during the opening plenary session of the Third European IRPA Congress to be held in Helsinki, Finland from 14-18 June 2010. The full history is expected to be published by the time of the 13th Congress in Glasgow, Scotland in 2012.