Hereditary Effects, Doubling Dose and GSD

Germ-cell mutations

Hereditary, or genetic, effects come from radiation damage to germ cells: sperm, eggs and the cells that make them. A mutation in a germ cell can pass to a child and to later generations. Hereditary effects are stochastic. No threshold is assumed, and a higher dose raises the chance of a mutation, not its severity. Radiation does not create new kinds of mutations. It raises the rate of the same mutations that happen spontaneously, so a radiation-caused mutation cannot be told apart from a natural one. Most are recessive, so they stay hidden unless both parents pass on the same altered gene, and many generations may pass before one shows.