Merril “isenbud, Director
Health and Safety Laboratory
Roy E. Albert, M. D., Medical Officer
Health and Safety Laboratory
MINUTLS OF STRONTIUM MCTABOLISH MEETING AT THE WASHINGTON DIVISION ©
~BIOLNGY AND 4EDIGINS, WEDNESDAY-JANUAZY 13, 195.
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Approximately 25 paople attended this conference and the chairmanship
as civided betweon Drs. Bugher and Claus. The purpose of the meeting
as to discuss the current concept of tolerable strontium burden and
also the status of information on strontium metabolism in relationship
to the tolerable burden in persons exposed to fallout material.
Dr. Brues opened the discussion and distributed a set of notes cover-
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ing the pertinent details on strontium and radium toxicity in humans
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and animals. He mentioned the study currently in progress at Argonne
a
son the long-term follow-up of individuals who received radium for
“a@therapeutic purposes. On the basis of this study and others on radium
eeetal painters, the permissible burden of 0.1 uc still seems like a
&: zood mumber. He quoted Zvans as saying that those cases with less than
Le 1 microgram of radium bedy burden and with bone changes probably were
exposed to mesothorium originally. The mesothorium is more toxic than
radium because thoron is not released from the body.
radium retention is about 1% of the initial dose.
fhe long-term
One year after
exposure, the retention was shout l% so that the integrated dose is
about 2 times the long-term body burden,
Dr. Brues ia also carrying
out a study on the radium burden of inmates in the Joliet Prison who
have been drinking water containing 5 uuc/liter,
The body burdens of
these individuals 4s at least 10°3 microcuries. ‘There are a number of
cities in [llincis whose water contains the above concentration of
radium and studies are now under way to eatimate the incidence of bone
sarcoma in this population. The Aurora Hospital has about 1 hone
sarcoma ver year for a population of about 30,000.
to be excessively high.
This does not seen
Mouse studies were discussed indicating that the comparative carcinogenicity of strontium to radium is from 1:8 to 1:15. These studies
were done on a type of mouse which has a high susceptibility to benign
tumors.
It is not known whether the high incidence of malignant tunors
represented only a conversion of benign tumors to a malignant form,
There is evidence that the latent veriod in the development of cancer
is a function of life span in amimals. The bone changes seen in humans
following ingestion of radium seem to progress very rapidly after they
once become apparent, also sucgesting a latent veriod.
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