Alice Stewart

Infobox Scientist
name = Alice Stewart
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caption = Alice Stewart
birth_date = 4 October 1906
birth_place = Sheffield, England
death_date = 2002, Oxford, England
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nationality =England
ethnicity =
field = epidemiology
work_institutions = Oxford University Medical School
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known_for = social medicine effects of radiation on health
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influences = Thomas Mancuso George Kneale
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prizes = Right Livelihood Award
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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. [Stewart, Alice M; J.W. Webb; B.D. Giles; D. Hewitt, 1956. "Preliminary Communication: Malignant Disease in Childhood and Diagnostic Irradiation In-Utero," "Lancet", 1956, 2: 447.]

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. [cite journal|last=Mancuso|first=Thomas|coauthors=Stewart, Alice; Kneale, George|date=November 1977|title=Radiation exposures of Hanford workers dying from cancer and other causes|journal=Health Physics|publisher=Health Physics Society|location=MacLean VA|volume=33|pages=pp 369–385|issn=1538-5159|accessdate=2008-10-03 ] 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 (who was aware of, but may have miscalculated, the unintentional "over-reporting" of cancer diagnoses in communities near to the works), but today her account is valued as a response to the perceived bias in reports produced by the nuclear industry. [cite journal|last=Mole|first=R. H.|date=May 1982|title=Hanford radiation study|journal=British Journal of Industrial Medicine|publisher=BMJ Publishing|location=London|volume=39|issue=2|pages=pp 200-202|issn=0007-1072|url=http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1008976|accessdate=2008-10-03] [cite book|last=Doll|first=Richard|authorlink =Richard Doll|title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford, England|date=January 2006|chapter=Alice Stewart|doi =10.1093/ref:odnb/76998]

In 1986 she was added to the "roll of honour" of the Right Livelihood Foundation, an annual award presented in Stockholm. [cite web
last =
first =
authorlink =
coauthors =
title = Alice Stewart
work =Laureates
publisher = Right Livelihood Foundation
date = 2007
url = http://www.rightlivelihood.org/stewart.html
format =
doi =
accessdate = 2008-06-06] 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. [cite news
last = Vines
first = Gail
coauthors =
title = A Nuclear Reactionary
work = Times Higher Educational Supplement
pages =
language =
publisher =
date = 1995-07-28
url =
accessdate = 2008-06-06]

References

*cite journal
last =Tucker
first =Anthony
authorlink =
coauthors =
title =Alice Stewart pioneering woman scientist
journal =The Guardian
volume =
issue =
pages =
publisher =
date =28 June 2002
url =http://education.guardian.co.uk/obituary/story/0,,750050,00.html
doi =
id =
accessdate =2006-12-06
*cite book |last=Greene|first=Gayle|authorlink= |coauthors= |title= The Woman Who Knew Too Much — Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation|year=1999 |publisher= University of Michigan Press|location= Ann Arbor MI|isbn=0-472-11107-8
*cite journal
quotes = yes
last=Bithell
first=John F
authorlink=
year=2002|month=Dec.
title=Obituary: Professor Alice Stewart
journal=Journal of radiological protection : official journal of the Society for Radiological Protection
volume=22
issue=4
pages=425–8
publisher = | location = | issn =
pmid = 12680428
bibcode = | oclc =| id = | url =http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0952-4746/22/4/601 | language = | format = | accessdate = | laysummary = | laysource = | laydate = | quote =
doi=10.1088/0952-4746/22/4/601