o
4
tt
.
hRoy tan reme.n for longa per.isds of
.
4
.
_
tir: and deliver a very
intense radiation dose to the surrounding lung tissue.
Plutonium is one cf the most potent
agents known to man.
cancer producing
A machinist of plutonium metal carried
'.08 micrograms of pvluteniunm-239
imbedded at the site of
the puncture wound in the palm of his hand.
Within the four
year period before it was excized, it produced a nodule which
Gisplayed precancerous changes".
There is
little doubt from
expérimental animal studies that inhaled plutonium is one of
the most potent respiratory carcinogens known.
There is
experimental and observed evidence that plutonium concentra-
tions in the lungs of dogs as low as 0.2 microcuries
trams of plutonium-23
)
<
?
wroduce cancer’.
Hence,
200 million kilograms of plutonium represents
(3 micro-
the flow of
a flow of over
101? cancer doses, a staggering number which, as will be
q
the
th
Tomonstrated subsequently, may be an underestimate <2
cancer doses by several orders of magnitude.
|
|
;
;
,
The persistance of this toxic material,
the environment,
once lost to
is measured in terms of thousands of years.
Roughly two-thirds of the plutonium flowing in.the nuclear
6/
lLushbauch, C.C. and J. Langham, "A Dermal Lesion from
Implanted Plutonium," Archives of Dermatology,
1962, pp.
7/
121-124,
86,
October
There are 0.061 curies per gram of plutonium-239.
Two-tenths of a microcurie of plutonium-238 would have a
mass of only 0.01 micrograms since plutonium-238 has a
much higher specific activity, 17.47 curies per gram.
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