Global Experts Call for Strengthening Radiation Protection in Medicine

Medical experts from around the world called for strengthening radiation protection in medicine in the Bonn+ Call for Action outlined at a recent IAEA conference. 

Bonn+ will build on and modernize the 2012 Bonn Call for Action that fostered global coordination for radiation safety in medicine. The aim is to ensure that protection and safety remain the highest priority amid rapid advances in new technologies.

Bonn+ emerged from a week of discussions at the International Conference on Radiation Protection in Medicine: X Ray Vision, held at IAEA headquarters in Vienna in December 2025. The event was co-sponsored by the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization. 

More than 650 participants from over 120 countries attended the conference, including medical professionals, regulators, patient advocates, health researchers and others with an interest in radiation protection in medicine. 

"We are all now more aware of the potential opportunities to reinforce safety of patients, professionals and caregivers, enabling society to maximize the benefits of ionizing radiation in medical uses and to face the challenges ahead," said Karine Herviou, IAEA Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Nuclear Safety and Security, at the close of the event.

"We all share a common overarching goal of ensuring the justified, optimized use of radiation in medicine and to protect patients from unnecessary and unintended exposures while achieving the clinical objective," she added.

Worldwide, radiation is used in medicine more than 10 million times every day, everywhere from large urban hospitals to small rural clinics. 

Advances in medical uses of radiation — including the use of artificial intelligence, digital systems and automated equipment — enable more patients to be diagnosed and treated. 

However, in many countries, regulation of medical radiation devices and their use remains limited, and rapidly evolving technologies pose new safety challenges.  

“We need to support the full integration of radiation protection into clinical care, and we need to ensure that we don’t compromise safety and quality for quantity,” said Mary Coffey, Trinity College Dublin and Conference President. 

Bonn+ will build on the 2012 Bonn Call for Action to address new realities in medicine. 

The IAEA has been supporting countries in strengthening medical radiation protection and safety for decades. It does this by providing safety standards, training courses, fellowships, scientific visits, training material, reports and technical assistance through expert missions. 

Bonn+ will reflect the changing medical landscape by accounting for artificial intelligence, advances in medical radiation technologies, data driven decision making and meeting healthcare needs in settings with limited or uneven resources for medical radiation protection and safety. 

“The immediate challenge will be to make sure we have all involved organizations with us on an agreed formulation of the new Bonn+,” said Ola Holmberg, Head of the IAEA Radiation Protection of Patients Unit and Scientific Secretary of the conference. “We will need to do this together, in collaboration, both the articulation and the implementation.”