jerobeam comments

you are completely out of line, and again I believe you don't understand what ICRP is and what it does. ICRP is an independent organization whose members are volunteer scientists, not government officials. Why should they have any vetting/reporting obligations to anyone? You would be right if talking about an official body or public institution. I work myself for a public institution and taking private money is completely out of the question. But research associations such as ICRP that do not (and sadly, cannot) rely on public funding have to look for any source of funds they can get. If the public is so upset about private companies funding ICRP members' travel costs, why isn't the government supporting researchers more? Most of professors' time nowadays is spent trying to secure funds for their research rather than the research itself. University departments are chronically under-funded. Prof. Niwa's research covers areas such as host cell reactivation of UV irradiated herpes simplex virus in tissue culture cells; radiation activation of endogenous retrovirus and its silencing in embryonal stem cells; minisatellite instability of the maternal allele in one cell stage mouse embryos by fertilization with radiation exposed sperm; p53 dependent induction of minisatellite instability and pink-eyed unstable allele; and, the mechanism of p53 dependent S checkpoint in preimplantation stage mouse embryos. Please tell me in which shape or form these research topics are supposed to affect the safety of nuclear reactors operated by TEPCO.

People should know better than to accept funding from companies that are directly affected by his findings.

Yubaru, you and the author of this article obviously do not understand the nature of ICRP. ICRP is not a regulator or a body of authority. It is essentially a research institution and an association of researchers in the field of radiobiology. ICRP does NOT make laws. It does NOT regulate or enforce regulations on companies. The most prominent researchers in the field come together under the umbrella of the ICRP association to give RECOMMENDATIONS to governments, companies or individuals to organize and take radiation protecion measures that have a sound scientific basis. With this in mind, no one will directly be "affected" by the findings of researchers that are members of ICRP. Recommendations are just recommendations. The national laws on radiation protection are adopted by the respective national legislation bodies, and they differ in many details from country to country. However, it is a testament to the high standards of ICRP that most of the recommendations issued by the commission are eventually adopted in national legislations. Most of the time, the national legislations are not as strict regarding dose/exposure limits as the ICRP would recommend having it (most recent topic is the recommended eye lens dose limit recommended by ICRP to prevent cataracts - the ICRP-recommended limit is well below what is currently in law all over the world). The best example is the USA, where the annual occupational dose limit is still at 50 mSv, whereas the ICRP-recommended value is 20 mSv and adopted in most countries around the world.

There should be laws against it!

Again, your revolted feeling is probably the source of a misunderstanding. By your standard, drug companies should be legally prohibited from funding cancer research, car companies should be prohibited from funding research into automotive safety, etc. Do you also think this is morally and ethically wrong? It is only natural that the nuclear power industry, whose workers are potentially exposed to ionizing radiation, would fund research into radiation protection to optimize their workers' and plants' safety. In the same way, mining companies have funded the mining departments of universities, tech companies have funded informatics or engineering departments and drug companies have funded medical research. I really see nothing wrong with that.

I have met prof.Niwa a few times and I can only defend him as being a great thinker, highly regarded scientist and deeply concerned about people's health. People should think before throwing garbage at people they don't know at all. Niwa-san comes from Kyoto and has worked there for most of his life. From his age, he should already be retired, but he now even moved to Fukushima to help the people there. People should listen to his knowledge and experience rather than being destructive about the (very rare and difficult to obtain) sources of funding for fundamental radiation protection research. If companies support environmental protection research activities it is regarded as "sustainability" and the companies are complimented - if they fund radiation protection / radiobiology research, it is considered corruption??