SESSION ON THE STRONTIUM-90 FALLOUT PROBLEM
(Continuation of Discussions at Special Meeting)
DR. FAILLA opened the meeting by presenting the problem. A special
meeting was held in Washington on December 26, 1956 for the purpose of
-
considering the strontium-90 fallout question, but no
decisions were reached.
DR. GLASS pointed out two
things that happened at the meeting which prevented
STATUS OF
PROBLEM
reaching a decision. They were, the statement by
Commissioner Murray that the weapons testing program
for the coming year was already decided upon and the
comment by Admiral Strauss that there was no great
urgency for a statement by the Committee.
DR. DUNHAM
commented that Admiral Strauss had not been aware of the purpose of the
special meeting when he arrived to greet the members and had later
expressed the opinion that he did not intend to discourage the Committee
from studying the problem and making any recommendations it saw fit.
Dr. Failla said that the problem exists in the mind of the public and
that some statement should be made by the AEC as to what is the true
situation with regard to the strontium-90 hazard.
in response to a question by Dr. Dunham as to whether the Committee had
in fact come to any decision, DR. WARREN stated the need for further
information as to the degree of accuracy of the various
analyses of strontium in the bone. This stimulated a
lengthy discussion of the methods of sampling and the
AVATLABLE
AND REQUIRED
DATA
analysis and the Committee was reassured by DR. DUNHAM
and DR. WESTERN that there was very little likelihood
that any significant errors involved in the bone analyses
which are currently being done by five or six different
laboratories, including one in England. The desirability
of offering spiked samples to the various laboratories
for intercomparison was discussed and DR. WESTERN agreed to follow this
up.»
He indicated that recent statements by Dr. Comar would tend to alter
Merril Eisenbud's estimates of ultimate maximum uptake by a factor of
2 to 5 in a downward direction.
DR. WESTERN pointed out that these exact numbers are relatively unimportant,
but that the entire problem should be redefined in order to clarify understanding in three general classes of the public; the
general non-scientific public, the general scientific
CLARIFICATION
OF PROBLEM
public and the scientific public informed with regard to
radiation. Such a redefinition of the problem would
consider the pertinent criteria; such as, genetic effect,
bone cancer, leukemia and lifespan. The questions should
be considered as to what is safe and unsafe or what is
acceptable or unacceptable and also what would be the
alternative to a normally unacceptable level.
-4.