Alice Stewart
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| Alice Stewart | |
 Alice Stewart
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| Born | 4 October 1906 Sheffield, England |
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| Died | 2002, Oxford, England |
| Nationality | England |
| Fields | epidemiology |
| Institutions | Oxford University Medical School |
| Known for | social medicine effects of radiation on health |
| Influences | Thomas Mancuso George Kneale |
| Notable awards | Right Livelihood Award |
Dr Alice Mary Stewart (née Naish) (4 October 1906, Sheffield, England to 23 June 2002, Oxford, England) was a physician and epidemiologist specialising in social medicine and the effects of radiation on health.
Her pioneering study of x-rays as a cause of childhood cancer, which she worked on from 1953 until 1956 as a member of the department of social and preventive medicine at Oxford University Medical School, was initially regarded as unsound, but her findings were eventually accepted worldwide and the use of medical x-rays during pregnancy and early childhood was curtailed as a result.[1]
Her most famous investigation (working with Professor Thomas Mancuso of the University of Pittsburgh) was among employees in the Hanford plutonium production plant, Washington, which found a far higher incidence of radiation-induced ill health than was noted in official studies. Sir Richard Doll, the epidemiologist respected for his work on smoking-related illnesses, attributed her anomalous findings to a "questionable" statistical analysis supplied by her assistant, George Kneale, but today her account is valued as a response to the perceived bias in reports produced by the nuclear industry.
In 1986 she was added to the roll of honour of the Right Livelihood Foundation, an annual award presented in Stockholm.[2] Although known as "Professor Alice Stewart" she was a reader in social medicine at the University of Oxford and was never awarded a university professorship: the honorary title accompanied her appointment as a professorial fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.[3]
[edit] References
- ^ Stewart, Alice M, J.W. Webb, B.D. Giles and D. Hewitt, 1956. "Preliminary Communication: Malignant Disease in Childhood and Diagnostic Irradiation In-Utero," Lancet, 1956, 2: 447.
- ^ Alice Stewart. Laureates. Right Livelihood Foundation (2007). Retrieved on 2008-06-06.
- ^ Vines, Gail. "A Nuclear Reactionary", Times Higher Educational Supplement, 1995-07-28. Retrieved on 2008-06-06.
- Tucker, Anthony (28 June 2002). "Alice Stewart pioneering woman scientist". The Guardian.
- Doll, Richard (2006). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press.
- Greene, Gayle (1999). The Woman Who Knew Too Much — Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation. Ann Arbor MI: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-11107-8.
- Bithell, John F (Dec. 2002). "Obituary: Professor Alice Stewart". Journal of radiological protection : official journal of the Society for Radiological Protection 22 (4): 425–8. doi:. PMID 12680428.
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