58
the blood volumes and the red cell volumesofthe
Caucasianslivingin the Islands and the Caucasians
of the Siri and Moore groups; furthermore, duration of residency in the Islands has nosignificant
effect. Earlier data had suggested that Caucasians
living in the Marshall Islands might have reduced
blood volumes andred blood cell volumes. Though
this may be true for certain individuals, it does
not seem to hold true for the group as a whole.
Test for Australia Antigen
The Australia antigen, a serum protein first
detected in the serum ofthe Australian aborigines,
was searched for in the Rongelap population.*
Details of these studies are presented in Appendix
16. Samples of sera from 250 Rongelap people
were examined between 1958 and 1965. Ofthese,
237 were consistently negative, | 1 were consistently
positive (4.4%), and 2 were inconsistent. Family
studies indicated that positive subjects were homozygous for the genes. This antigen has been found
to be relatively commonin someformsof leukemia.
* These studies were carried out by Dr. B.S. Blumberg, Institute for Cancer Research, Philadelphia, Pa.
q
|
it
REGRESSION LINES
SIRI {
!
BY 10.91 +0,090 (TBwW)
RCV #0.08 +0.0474 (TBW)
n
BV *0647+0.45 (Tew)
MOORE { RCV 90.158 + 0.05296 (TBW)
BV 0.5337 +0.0767 (TBwW)
MARSHALLESE { RCV « -01749+0.0441 (TBW)
CAUCASIANS { BV «1.2101 +0.0792 (TBW!]
IN PACIFIC
RCV #019947+00419(TBW)
+
b
'
VOLUME, LITERS
["
3b
~
2
]
IK
W. SIRI
o
10
“f wee MARSHALLESE “]
ee
—-— CAUCASIANS
“7° MOORE
IN PACIFIC
l
l
20
l
30
!
40
TOTAL BODY WATER, LITERS
Figure 67.
i
56
60
Since the Rongelap people will be medically
examinedfor manyyears,it will be interesting to
see whetherthe presence of this antigen is related
substantially to disease, particularly leukemia.
ESTIMATION OF INTERNAL BODY BURDENS.
OF RADIONUCLIDES
In the 1965 survey, the body burdensof radio-
nuclides were determined by use of a portable
shadow-shield type of whole-body counter and by
radiochemical analysis of 24-hr urine specimens.
Whole-Body Counting
The use of the shadow-shield type of whole-
body counter represents a departure from previous surveys, in which a 21-ton steel room had been
transported to Rongelap andused for this purpose.
Correlations between the two techniques werees-
tablished by standardizations using the permanent
steel room and a duplicate of the shadowshield at
Brookhaven National Laboratory. The body ‘°K
values of the Rongelapese provide another means
of correlation.
The shadow-shield counter (Figure 68) is very
similar to the one described by Palmer and
Roesch" and to the Hanford whole-body counter.'* It was installed on Rongelap in one of the
newly acquired air-conditioned trailers. The de’ tector, an 11%-in.-diameter Nal (TI) crystal 4 in.
thick (Harshaw), is housed in a lead shielding
supported bya steel plate about 14 in. above the
bed. The subject to be counted lies on a foam rubber cushion in the trough between the two walls of
lead bricks, and is moved to a position under the
detector by a motor-driven worm-screw drive. The
system was Calibrated with a plastic phantom
man, both in a stationary position beneath the
counter and with movement equivalent to the
length of the body during the count.
Thesignal from the detector was picked up by 7
photomultiplier tubes mounted on the crystal, and
the gamma-ray spectrum was analyzed with a
400-channel pulse-height analyzer (RIDL). The
gamma-rayspectral data were read out on rolls of
adding-machine paperfor immediate evaluation,
and on punchedpapertapefor subsequent data
processing which involved transfer of the data
from the punched papertape to magnetic tape
and subsequentanalysis in termsof radioisotopes
by a spectral stripping program en an IBM-7094