woes
Bios AND “Sr RETENTION FROM RONGELAP FOODS
subsequent surveys.
Therefore
745
HASL was requested to analyze the
urine specimens collected in 1963 and 1964for "Cs as well as for "Sr.
In 1962, the year of the last reported survey,’ the mean urinary
“Sr level for individual adult 24-hr specimens was about 12 pc/liter,
from which the body burden was estimated!:* tobe 12 nc. In comparison
adults in a metabolic ward at Hines Hospital in Chicago, Ill., in 1962
were excreting an average of 0.5 pc of “Sr per liter of urine and,
based on bone “Sr levels,® probably had body burdens of around 0.5 ne.
In 1961 the average ‘Cs body burden of the Rongelapese was 14,7 nc
per kilogram of body weight compared to 0.048 nc per kilogram of body
weight measured in U. S. medical-team personnel.** The “Sr and
TCs body burdens of Rongelapese in 1961 and 1962 were therefore
about 24 and 300 times higher, respectively, than those oz individuals
living in the United States. The average '’Cs body burden of Rongelap
natives in 1961 was as high as or higher than the burdens of Lapps and
Eskimos, who have unusually high body burdens. Assuming that 50 kg is
the average weight of a Rongelap native, one can calculate, based on
the reported data, an average body burden in 1961 of 735 nc of *’Cs.
This value may be compared to the measurements’ made on Finnish
Lapps in May 1962 which showed an average body burden of 508 nc of
ICs, Whole-body counts® of Alaskans at Anaktuvuk Pass showed an
average of 421 nec of ‘""Cs curing the summer of 1962. It is now clear
that the high Rongelapese body burdens are the result of consuming the
various types of contaminated food which come from the Sea or are
produced on Rongelap.*? This is reasonable since the 1961 whole-body-
count data showed that the mean '"Cs levels of Rongelapese who were
exposed to the heavy fallout in 1954 were not significantly different
from the body burdens of those who were not exposed.*
During a single 24-hr period in September 1959, nine Rongelap
total-diet samples were collected by the University of Washington
Laboratory of Radiation Biology and subsequently analyzed for ics
and “Sr as well as for other nuclides.’ The "Cs and the Sr daily in-
takes averaged 2.4 and 0.084 nec, respectively. Although individual
toods were not analyzed in this study, it was reported that pandanus
was one of the highest contributors of these radionuclides io total diez.
t
MATERIALS AND METRODS
During the 1963 Rongelao medical survey, several kilograms each
of pandanus pulp, coconut meat, and coconut milk were collected,
frozen, and brought back to the United States. Over the seven-day
period from July 2 to 8, 1963, one of the authors consumed 4.85, 1.75,
and 3.20 kg of the pandanus, coconut meat, and coconut milk, respectively, in addition to a normal diet, Total fecal and urinary samples
were collected for two consecutive three-day periods prior to the
Re errap