WHAT IS A REASONABLE COST FOR PROTECTION AGAINST RADIATION AND OTHER RISKS

In Sweden, the National Audit Bureau is encouraging attempts at discus sing the costs of protection. For many years, a government authority c onsidering new regulations must provide the government with background material illustrating the costs, the expected benefits, and other asp ects of the decision. Direct costs should be stated together with nonq uantifiable factors indicated by a valuation of whether their conseque nces are positive or negative. Applied to radiation protection, this i ncludes discussion of the resources worth spending in order to prevent a case of serious radiation injury. If the marginal cost for a protec tive measure is <5 million Swedish crowns (5 MSEK; approximately 1 mil lion U.S. dollars) per prevented case, the radiation protection author ity considers the measure to be strongly justified. If the cost exceed s 25 MSEK per case, then very strong reasons are required for implemen tation of the measure. In the intermediate interval, measures are part icularly justified if the marginal costs are in the lower end and the total societal cost of the protection is of little concern at the nati onal economical level. The interval 5-25 MSEK per case corresponds to 0.4-2 MSEK personsievert-1. Resource allocation for health protection in general, ethical aspects, and practical difficulties in assessing c osts and risks are briefly discussed in the paper. Priorities in Swedi sh radiation protection are presented and a case study for the use of carbon fiber cassettes in x-ray diagnostics is given as an example.