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Administration to provide the rationale for allocating such foods.
Since
the physiological effects of high body burdens of strontium, like radium,
are not expected until years after ingestion, older people obviously
could tolerate the most contaminated of the supplies.
Therefore, plans
for allocation on the basis of age would seem to be desirable.
In a postattack world, the least contaminated food could become
relatively expensive, a result to be expected if only the normal supplyand-demand factors were operative and no governmental control exercised.
Thus, the more affluent of the survivors would be the least
affected, and the poorer, the most affected.
The situation easily could
be exacerbated because of an exaggerated fear of contamination, the
situation that probably exists among much of the population now.
Thus,
because the utilization of strontium-bearing food in a postattack world
has not only physical and biological elements, but sociological, psychological, and economic implications as well, it needs careful study and
planning now.
If, in a postattack situation, strontium-90 turned out to be a much
greater hazard than the calculations indicate, and the countermeasures
proved far less effective than expected, the consequences, although no
doubt catastrophic in the eyes of those directly affected, would not be
catastrophic in the sense of jeopardizing survival of the society.