INTRODUCTION

The Brookhaven National Laboratory Radiological Surveillance
Program in the Marshall Islands includes the quantitative assessment
of internally deposited radioactive material in the Marshallese.

In,

this report, the results of four whole body counting measurements on

the Bikini population that were conducted in 1974, 1977, 1978 and
1979 are presented.

Because the body burden measurements were per-

formed by two different organizations, the current experimental de-

sign included a cross check mechanism to ensure that previous and
' current results are directly comparable.

was multidirectional.
duplicated.
(CO 63).

The approach to the problem

First, key detection components were

Second, the systems were calibrated in the same manner

Third, the operational procédures and counting geometries

were basically similar, and duplicate counts were made on Brookhaven
personnel with known. body burdens to ensure total system comparabil-

ity.
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN

A.

Instrumentation
The detector chosen for field use by both Brookhaven organiza-

tions is a 28 cm diameter, 10 em thick, sodium iodide thallium
activated scintillation crystal NaI(Tl).

It is optically coupled to

seven, 7.6 cm diameter low background magnetically shielded,
photomultiplier tubes.

In the current system the signal output from

each photomultiplier tube is connected in parallel through a summing
box with the combined output routed to a preamplifier/amplifier and

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