June 23, 1980
Comments on Report:
Assessment of Radiation Health Effects
of the Resettlement of Enewetak Atoll Prepared by
M. A. Bender and A. B. Brill
by
Karl Z. Morgan
School of Nuclear Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, Georgia
30332
The following are a few brief comments on this report by M. A. Bender
and A. B. Brill dated October 12, 1979:
1,
In general, this is an excellent report.
The
report
accepts
the
dose measurements
of Robinson et
al.
(1979) without providing the reader with any of the pertinent information needed so that he can judge its adequacy.
For example, there
is no breakdown of the dose between that which is external and that
which is
internal.
There
is no indication whether internal dose
values include a contribution from the actinide alpha-emitters, yet
one would expect that some of the islands have appreciable quantities
239
of
Pu.
It is not stated, but I assume their dose values are almost
90
90
239,
u.
I would expect the
entirely from
“~Sr +
~~Y and 137, s plus
contribution from other radionuclides to be negligibie.
3.
It
seems
odd
that values
are given only for total body dose.
ince, as stated above, the dose is mostly from 905, + 90y | 137 Cs and
239,
u, one would expect the external dose to be primarily beta-dose
because
90
Sr and
90
and x-ray emitter.
Y are pure beta-emitters and
One wonders
137
Cs is a strong beta
if the beta bremstrahlung dose was
included with the total body dose.
4.)
What would their estimate be on the skin cancer induction from
this skin dose.
UNSCEAR gives a wide variation of skin cancer co~
efficients of 2 x 10°’ to 1.8 x 10> skin cancers per person rem.
I
doubt these values apply here, however, because some of the betaradiation in this case has high energy and can penetrate ] cm into