RERF held its Media Forums※ on April 21, 2017, at the Hiroshima Laboratory and on April 27 at the Nagasaki Laboratory. The Hiroshima event gathered 17 media representatives and Nagasaki’s event attracted six journalists.

At both events, Dr. Eric J. Grant, Associate Chief of Research, started the proceedings off by giving a lecture explaining his paper titled “Solid Cancer Incidence among the Life Span Study of Atomic Bomb Survivors: 1958-2009.” After that, Dr. Ohtsura Niwa, RERF Chairman, spoke about RERF’s future plans and direction.

In the final part of the Hiroshima event, questions that RERF had received from the media beforehand regarding issues of most interest to them were responded to by RERF researchers. In Nagasaki, on the other hand, the Q&A session consisted mainly of questions regarding Dr. Grant’s paper and its implications for society that the media representatives asked without prior preparation. The last part of both forums opened the floor to informal communication between the journalists in attendance and RERF, fulfilling the original objective of the Media Forum event, which was initiated in 2012.

※The purpose of the annual media gathering is to present new research achievements and increase understanding among media representatives about the studies conducted over a period of nearly 70 years at ABCC-RERF. In this way, the forums provide knowledge the media can use to better inform the public about the health effects from A-bomb radiation.