ArticleJournal of the history of biology2015
James V. Neel and Yuri E. Dubrova: Cold War debates and the genetic effects of low-dose radiation.
Article in Journal of the history of biology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Of Epistemes and Insects: How Drosophila and Butterflies Shape Our Understanding of Radiation Risk.Journal of the history of biology · 2026Article
- No evidence of increased mutations in the germline of a group of British nuclear test veterans.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- 1945-1964 WHO's Right to Health?NTM · 2022Article
- Connecting to the Living History of Radiation Exposure.Journal of the history of biology · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
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.
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Registered trials
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