APPENDIX 18
wing an Acute
Cesium-137 and Strontium-90 Retention Follo
Food
lap
Ronge
of
Ingestion

by
ry, New York
Edward P. Hardy Jr. and Joseph Rivera (Health and Safety Laborato
Conard
A.
Robert
and
on)
Commissi
Energy
Atomic
Operations Office, U.S.

(Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York).
Published in “Radioactive Fallout from Nuclear Weapons Tests,

Proceedings from the Second Conference, Germantown, Md., November 3-6,
Ed. A.W. Klement, Jr., AEC Conf. 765, Nov. 1965.

1964,"

SUMMARY
The cesium-137 and strontium-90 body burdens of people living on Rongelap
Island are high compared to most other populations of the world, The reason
for this is that the natives consume foods which are contaminated with longlived fission product radioactivity resulting from an accidental fallout

incursion in 1954.

Their Cs-137 body burdens are comparable to those of

people living in other limited areas such as Lapland and northern Alaska
where unique ecological conditions are conducive to high concentrations
of cesium-137 in indigenous foods.
The metabolism of cesium-137 and
strontium-90 has been studied in the Lapland and Alaskan groups but not in
the Rongelap natives.
Since facilities for a metabolic balance study were not available on
Rongelap Island, one of us (R.A.C.) brought several native food items
(pandanus fruit and coconut meat and milk) back to Brookhaven and consumed

them under controlled conditions.

Urinary and fecal specimens were collected

and whole body counting measurements were made over a period of 180 days.

The intake of strontium-90 over a seven day period was twenty times higher
than normal and that of cesium-137, sixty times higher than normal.

Fifty percent of the ingested cesium-137 in the Rongelap food was
excreted in urine after 85 days while fourteen percent was eliminated via
the feces at the same time.
In contrast, most of the strontium-90 was
unabsorbed.
Fifty percent was excreted in feces at 10 days while only two

and one-half percent was excreted in urine.

The retention of cesium-137 as

determined by both whole body counting and excretion measurements showed a
biological half-life of 74 days.
Strontium-90 retention as a function of time
was best described as a series of exponentials, and approached a value of 25
percent after 140 days.
These findings fall within the range of results of many other studies
conducted under a wide variety of natural, accidental, and experimental
conditions.
Table I and Figures 1-4 summarize the above findings.

159

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