Professor Edward Radford

Abstract

Professor Edward Radford, who died suddenly, aged 79, on October 12th last year at his home, was probably best known in the UK as Chairman of the Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation Committee III (BEIR) of the US National Academy of Sciences which initially reported in 1979. The 21 member committee were seriously split over their conclusions about the risk of radiation exposure, with Radford outspoken in his support of the highest estimate. Feelings of apprehension were running high in the US at the time because of the Three Mile Island accident. Eventually the Academy withdrew the initial report and a bitter controversy ensued which resulted in several acrimonious publications. Radford's rejection of any sanitisation of the risk, with a Chairman's dissenting statement, did not endear him to the nuclear establishment but his tough stance earned him respect internationally and set the scene for his subsequent work as a consultant and expert witness in numerous court cases.Ed was born in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1922 and proceeded from studying biology at MIT to a medical degree from Harvard as a National Scholar. His interest in radiation health studies began during military service when he was involved in the Marshall Islands A-bomb tests and returned full circle near the end of his career as a consultant to the Nuclear Claims Tribunal. In 1949 he went back to Harvard Medical School to do research into respiratory physiology and developed a nomogram to help with the artificial respiration of patients with poliomyelitis. However, his interest in radiobiology flourished when he joined the Harvard School of Public Heath in 1952 and produced their first teaching module on radiation health effects.In the early 1960s his research with Vilma Hunt into natural radioactivity in cigarettes began and he identified polonium-210 as a possible co-carcinogen in cigarette smoke. This work continued when he moved, in 1965, to Ohio as Director of the Department of Environmental Health and Kettering Laboratory and professor of physiology in the College of Medicine at the University of Cincinnati, and subsequently as professor of environmental medicine at John Hopkin's University School of Hygiene and Public Health. It was a logical step for him to develop an interest in the effects of inhaled radon, particularly in miners, and this he pursued enthusiastically when he was appointed as Director of the Centre for Environmental Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh in 1977. His international reputation was by then established and he was appointed to chair the BEIR III Committee and later was a member from 1981 to 1995 of the Three Mile Island Public Health Fund Advisory Committee which supported research into the effects of low-level radiation.In 1975–1976 Radford spent a sabbatical with Sir Richard Doll at Oxford and he returned by invitation to present some evidence at the THORP inquiry. He became well known in the UK as a compassionate, expert witness on behalf of claimants against the nuclear industry and MoD. After his `retirement' from full time academic work in 1983, Radford redoubled his efforts on behalf of claimants and also spent some time in Japan as a visiting scientist at the RERF and as a visiting professor at the University of Occupational and Environmental Health at Kitakyushu. Even in the 1990s when he was in his seventies Ed was seemingly tireless in litigation cases both in the US and the UK.Ed Radford was a gentle man and a scientist, but was vociferous and stubborn in defence of his principles which were recognised and respected the world over. In 1983 Ed married, for the third time, to an English occupational health consultant, Jennifer Barnard, and in 1986 they moved to England, initially to the Cotswolds, then to Woking and subsequently to Haslemere in 2000. Just before his death he completed a book about his professional experiences which should provide fascinating reading.