DR. STERN, in response to a request for his opinion by Dr. Failla, stated
that it was of great importance to get the general scientific groups to
avoid contradictory statements by competent scientists.
Dr. Failla pointed out thet the more serious matter was
the apparent contradictory statements by those associated
METHOD OF
PRESENTING
with the AEC. DR. GLASS raised the question of establishing
a policy regarding public statements on this or similar
TO PUBLIC
official groups; such as, the AEC, the NAS, the ACBM, etc..
STATEMENT
community.
subjects by responsible scientists in official or quasi-
DR. STERN expressed a belief that if the ACBM were to
prepare a statement and receive the endorsement of the
GAC, it would have a great influence on the scientific
DR. FAILLA stated that the GAC had asked the ACBM for a state-
ment but there had been many delays in attempting to arrive at a decision.
DR. CANTRIL stated that perhaps there had already been too great a delay
but that the need for a statement of an educational rather than a propoganda
type exists.
DR, FALLLA raised the question of the current state of knowledge regarding
the velative uptake of strontium and calcium.
DR. DUNHAM and DR. WESTERN
,eported that considerable work was being done in this
“wea and that important additional work is being planned.
lndications are that there is preferential discrimination
SUBSIDIARY
of from 2:1 to 5:1 in favor of calcium.
_——*
PROBLEMS
DR. FAILLA and DR. GLASS both expressed concern fer the
use of absolute numbers in stating the part of the
population affected by radiation.
DR. FAILLA expressed
belief that there are no thresholds of various radiation effects; such as,
bone tumor, leukemia or life shortening, but this cannot be proved.
The
question then appears to be what percentage of the population can we
tolerate to be damaged.
The Geneticists have stated that 10 r in thirty
years is acceptable.
If the gonadal dose of radiation required to double
the spontaneous mutation rate is 50 r up to age 30, this means that an
increase of 20% in the mutation rate is acceptable.
On this basis it is
likely that a 20% increase in bone tumor incidence would also be acceptable,
considering that the spontaneous incidence of bone tumors is small.
He
also pointed out that we should not ignore the fact that we are distributing
strontium on countries other than our own.
At the request of Dr. Failla, DR. WESTERN proposed the following action.
The ACBM should suggest to the AEC that steps be taken to inform the public
with regard to the strontium-90 hazard from weapons
testing.
Such a program would probably take a year or
PROPOSED
ACTION
two and might result in a number of publications directed
at the non-technical public, the scientific public and
the segment of the scientific public informed on radiation,
such as radiologists. DR. CANTRIL suggested an AEC report
(not a book) which would state what is known to date, what