On the Sensitivity of Children to Radiation

made our lives richer, more pleasant and comfortable, and in the short term, healthier as well. But the price for this is high. Our living space was and is being invaded by both chemical and physical toxic agents. Through this, quality of life is being lost. The time will come when the loss outweighs the gain, when disease and early death from a contaminated environment increase faster than progress in medicine, nutrition, and hygiene can compensate if that point has not been reached already. In terms of environmentally provoked illnesses, cancer and leukemia come first to mind. This may be because the pathomechanism of carcinogenic development is basically known. Damage to the information in the genome of a single cell (in the area of the gene that controls cell division, growth, and differentiation) can finally lead to cancer following years or decades. This knowledge facilitates the acceptance of causality, to the extent that a high-intensity source is known (for example, the atomic explosion in Hiroshima). Further, cancer and leukemia are clear cut diagnoses that allow substantiation, and can therefore supply the necessary data to the field of epidemiology to allow for causal connections. However, it is much more difficult -almost impossible -to discern a connection when chemical and physical toxic substances have an influence in minimal activities and concentrations over a period of many years, and when the organism's response is not limited to cancer. Indications of disturbances in the immune system are just as threatening as the increase in the rate of cancer and the younger ages of cancer cases [la,lb]. Infectious diseases believed to be overcome long ago are appearing once again. (Health departments are registering an increase in new tuberculosis infections.) The increase in allergic reactions cannot be over looked. (For example, less than 1% of the Swiss population suffered from hay fever in the 1920s; six decades later, that figure had risen to 15%, mostly children and young adults [2]. Allergic bronchial asthma and atopic eczema are also increasing; a prevalence of 3% to 10% for asthma and 10% to 15% for eczema during childhood is considered realistic.) This phenomenon can hardly be explained exclusively by an increase in outdoor and indoor allergens or by a change in their antigen characteristics. Fundamental disturbances in the immune system may contribute to the phenomenon. The origin is unknown. With diagnoses that are difficult to substantiate, data are difficult to obtain. We will probably wait in vain for the discovery of causal connections that can be justified in secure, natural science terms. Nevertheless, it seems plausi-