we are Com letely satisfies that a toiers 7@
oripinally desig .ed for vse on fieh eentuniiated

with radioactive asn can be lopicall) applied to

fish whese racioactivity arises from ti.c ingestion

of radioactive materials.)

During our entire monitoring procedure we encountered

only 3 tuna showing evidence of radioactivity, out of

nany thevsends witch we examined. One of these fish

was examined by the New York operations office of the

AEC, on May 23, 19S.

We siowed Mr. Hansen the results

of that examination, which disci.sed the greatest

activity in the bone and kidney, intermediate activity

in the skin, and rather low activity in the edible
portion.

we aiowd Mr. Hansen data indicating that the

activity in the flean was appr ximately double that of
the natural rediosctivity of camed tuna. This natural
activity is due to neturally-occurring radioactiver.artnant of Energy

~ Historian's Offles
potassium.
We also discussed briefly the sffect of canning upon tng CHIVES
radioactivity of a Suna showirr some man-made radioactivity,

as Cisclosed by a simulated cvning procedure conducted by
our Divisions of Pharmacology znd Food.

is showed that

there was some loss of radiosctivity of the edible portions
during the canning process.

‘2 stated trat we had not

announced an otficial tolerance for radioactivity in tuna.
We pointed out, however, that 4FC hai informally made some
Siggestions to the Japanese w.ich res lted in their
adopting the 100 cpm and later t:<¢ 500 cpm values.
we said that our information si.ved that scme tuna
showing evidence of radioaciiv.ty were arriving in Japan
as recently as last October. e have no information as
to .sindings since toat date.

Te

vir greategt cuncern }.as tes
it’ long-lived Lasotopes
such as Sr°o and SO wich er -etabolized in a fasnion
sinilar to calciuz and thus ca. .3 deposited in the bone.
Dering the first fow weeks after an atomic explosion, we
are also concerned with radioacvive cesium, which ‘s

likely to appear throughout the tissues.

6.

We pointed out that whet..or the radloactivity of canned
tuna constitutes danger to pitlie health devends upon

soveral factors, including the activity of the tuna, the

amount likely to te consumed ly any menber of the
population, and such tnin7zs is the age and health of the

incividual. While we would not be concerned over the
effect on public bealth of an occasional tuna showing

some man=made radioactivity, we would becose concerned
if all tuna snowed an increase in radioactivity as
meagured by field instrumemits.

Zi!

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