As a result of some recent discussions with Ed Wrenn (NYU), I am convinced that we should look for americium in Marshallese whole body coungs. Making inferences about Pu from Am data can be pretty tenuous, but “tam uptake data would be useful in establishing conservative upper limits on Pu body burdens. Besides that, the present state of the art allows_us to see a small fraction of a maximum permissible body burden for 24h am, and the incremental cost of adding this specific analysis to the present whole body counting program should be small; I am strongly encouraging the addition of Ed Wrenn's resources to the whole body counting program tentatively scheduled for next spring. f£ hope to arrange a meeting soon between Ed Wrenn, Stan Cohn, Bob Conard, and myself to dis- cuss the details. If additional costs are identified beyond our budgets, I may have to talk to you about the possibility of additional funding from BER or OS. As a follow up to our discussion about the Utirik thyroid cancer cases, I spoke with Bob Conard about the dose estimates. He substantiated our surmise that the estimates were based on rather tenuous and late (post-exposure) urine analyses, and external exposure rate measurements. Evaluations of environmental levels of 1291 may prove helpful in shedding more Light on thyroid dose estimates (at least in establishing a dose rétio between Rongelap and Utirik}). However, preliminary attempts at activation analysis by the BNL Chemistry department have indicated a total soil ilocine level of ~ 10 ppm a samples from Rongelap. This is near the limit of ce- tection, and the 1297 jevel is yet to be established. We will continue to look into this approach, however, because Larger samples and preliminary chemical separation of iodine may increase the sensitivity of the technique. The following approximate schedule may slip a week depending on interface requirements with Batelle's marine sediments program at Bikini. Fri. Sun. Wed. Thurs. Mon. Fri. Sun. Mon. September 17 Hono == September 19 September 22 Kwaj Wotje September 27 October 1 October 3 October 4 Utirik Rongelap Bikini Kwa j September 23 Ailuk Kwaj ~ Wotje Ailuk -~ Rongelap Bikini Kwaj Hono ~ Utirik I will keep you appraised of any new developments. Best regards, ALst— N. A. Greenhouse 5 C. Meinhold ro J. Naidu a R. Conard 1 rw sls ce: