RADIATION STANDARDS, INCLUDING FALLOUT 3il operations, these doses may come to about 30 percentof the appropriate limits. Representative Hosmer. What kind of an uncommon food habit would create this situation? Like a liking for plutonium? Mr. Parker. No; we have not yet gotten so sold onthe virtues of plutonium, although we regard it highly, as to consider it a food. ‘We for example, Mr. Hosmer, unwittingly or unavoidably atthe present time insert radioactive products into the Columbia River. This will go through various life forms including a rather noted deposition in shellfish, An uncommon food habit example might be a man wholived exclusively on shellfish rather than the normal diet. The British situation has a community which eats a seaweed and this seaweed would have to be the one that accumulates a rather spectacular amount of radioactive debris that the British insert into the sea. This is representative-—— Representative Hosmer. In other words, you cannot be a faddist in the State of Washington. That is what can be concluded. Mr. Parker. I think one could broaden that and say “Don’t be a food faddist in any State.” Mr. Ramey. Was there someone around Calder Hall who ate lobsters entirely as an advertisement and they had to raise their standard on his intake so they wouldn’t hurt ? Mr. Parxer. I am not familiar with that specific instance. In our case in this area where we do have uncertainty because of these individual habits things are looking up with the expanded availability of the whole body counter which is giving us a method of measuring what radioactive materials actually exist in the body. We hope, if we are asked to report to you at some subsequent time, that the data here will be very much improved. One can get some indirect reference to the situation in industry by looking at accidents, Accidents can range all the way from minor spills of radioactive contaminants to the serious nuclear excursions, the criticality incidents up to and including loss of life. These latter are the ones that are spectacular. They are well characterized and well reported. The next chart (table IT, p. 319) reveals the rate at which criticality type accidents are aceruing in the United States. Within the hmit of statistics of numbers like 1 and 2, one has to say that 1 and 2 are equal and the summation of this experience is that. major accidents in the business is continuing at a steady rate. That situation is not conspicuously favorable noris it conspicuously unfavorable since presumably some accidents will always occur. I hoped to report on the feasibility and cost to industry of maintaining appropriate levels of protection, since these are important ultimately to a thriving industry. I find nothing newto reporthere. I would say a good quality of protection is being achieved, though not too cheaply, and this will continue as long as the applicable base himits continue to be more or less stable. Neither do I see evidence that calls for a radical change in these limits. In some cases. in fact, as in plutonium deposition, there may even be a tendency to regard the present safety margin as more than adequate. Finally, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, there is a tendencyto relate the careful control and work climate in this specific application of psdorERRORHINER ontiaGgsotioaResttagpie