Monitoring the eye lens: how do the international organisations react?

The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) has recommended to lower the limit of the dose to the eye lens for occupationally exposed persons to a mean value of 20 mSv y(-1) (averaged over 5 y, with a maximum of 50 mSv y(-1)); already in the autumn of 2011, both the European Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency : IAEA) took over this reduction in their respective draft basic safety standards. Even prior to this (and since then, increasingly so), several international activities were started (among other things, the following ones): (1) the ICRP adopted a stylised model of the eye to calculate dose conversion coefficients for its report ICRP 116; (2) the European Commission has funded the ORAMED project dealing with radiation protection in medicine; (3) in its standard IEC 62387 on passive dosimetry systems, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has laid down requirements for Hp(3) eye dosemeters; (4) the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the IAEA provide a range of practical advice in the standard ISO 15382 (still a draft) and in a technical document IAEA TecDoc on both radiation protection and on dosimetry; (5) for most cases, the International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements (ICRU) recommends both phantoms (the slab and the cylinder). In short: most national procedures can orientate themselves on international ones; some questions, however, remain open.