20 years after exposure would be safe, 5 microcuries would begin to produce radiographically demonstrable skeletal changes, and 50 - 200
microcuries might correspond to the Leo in 20 years.”

It is felt that even this statement cannot be depended upon
because of the uncertainties discussed in prior sections relating to
the state of knowledge of the deleterious effects of both radium and
strontium-90 when lodged in the body.

At present, it is perhaps fair

to state that the MPC as derived may have to be lowered when applied to

children and to longer periods of exposure than 20 years.

No projec-

tion of current knowledge to levels of hazard beyond the MPC and, perhaps, the lowest estimated damage burden should be made.
The Iodine-131 Problem.

Reports from Operation CASTLE that

radioactive iodine was found in the urine of natives and test personnel
aave been substantiated by several test programs in this country Wiz43:
46/ In these programs, iodine-131 was detected in appreciable amounts

in cattle and humans and found to have a biological half-life such as
to indicate that it must have originated in the CASTLE series of
nuclear detonations.

The quantitative similarity in amount of iodine

present in persons in the United States and in Honolulu as compared
with the CASTLE test participants exposed to fall-out in the Pacific

test area warrants consideration of this element both as a local fallout hazard and as a world-wide contaminant.
As a consequence of nuclear fission and subsequent chain decay
many isotopes of iodine are formed.

Of these only two, iodine-131 and

iodine-133, appear to have half-lives of a duration worth considering
as potentially hazardous.

Iodine-133 has a half-life of 22 hours as

compared with that of 8 days for iodine-131, and thus at time of

4h/ Jones, H., Confirmation of Radioactivity in Thyroid of Various
3

°

.

45/ Van Middlesworth; Nucleonics, Vol. 12, Sept 1954.
46/ Hartgering, J-B., et al., unpublished, Army Medical Service Grad“uate School, 1955.

122

Select target paragraph3