58
the blood volumes and the red cell volumesof the
Caucasiansliving in the Islands and the Caucasians
of the Siri and Moore groups; furthermore, duration of residency in the [slands has no significant
effect. Earlier data had suggested that Caucasians
living in the Marshall Islands might have reduced
blood volumes and Ted bloodcell volumes. Though
Since the Rongelap people will be medically
examined for many years, it will be interesting to
see whetherthe presenceof this antigenis related
not seem to hold true for the group as a whole.
In the 1965 survey, the body burdens ofradionuclides were determined by use of a portable
this mav be true for certain individuals, it does
Test for Australia Antigen
The Australia antigen, a serum protein first
detected in the serum of the Australian aborigines,
was searched for in the Rongelap population.*
Details of these studies are presented in Appendix
16. Samples of sera from 250 Rongelap people
were examined between 1958 and 1965. Of these,
237 were consistently negative. 11 were consistently
positive (4.4%), and 2 were inconsistent. Family
studies indicated that positive subjects were homozvygousfor the genes. This antigen has been found
to be relatively commonin someformsof leukemia.
*These studies were carried out by Dr. B.S. Blumberg,Institute for Cancer Research, Philadelphia, Pa.
substantially to disease, particularly leukemia.
ESTIMATION OF INTERNAL BODY BURDENS
OF RADIONUCLIDES
shadow-shield type of whole-body counter and by
radiochemical analysis of 24-hr urine specimens.
Whole-Body Counting
The use of the shadow-shield type of wholebody counter represents a departure from previous surveys, in which a 21-ton steel room had been
transported to Rongelap and usedfor this purpose.
Correlations between the two techniques wereestablished by standardizations using the permanent
steel room and a duplicate of the shadowshield at
Brookhaven National Laboratory. The body *’K
values of the Rongelapese provide another means
of correlation.
The shadow-shield counter (Figure 68) is very
i
7
I
|
T
r
T
|
REGRESSION LINES
SIRI
{
|
|
MOORE {
=0.5337+00767 [TBW]
= -O1749 +0044) (TBW)
=12!01+00792(TEwW)
=019947+0 0419 (Tew)
2
/
supported by steel plate about 14 in. above the
bed. The subject to be counted lies on a foam rub-
ber cushion in the trough betweenthe twowalls of
lead bricks, and is moved to a position underthe
VOLUME, LITERS
&
!
/
”
thick (Harshaw), is housed in a lead shielding
detector by a motor-driven worm-screwdrive. The
system was Calibrated with
plastic phantom
man, both in a stationary pv-ition beneath the
.“BLOOD
VOLUME
VOLUME
weer
|
0
tector, an 1144-in.-diameter Nal (T1) crystal 4 in.
BV =O0.647+01t5 (TAW)
RCV =0.158 +0.05296 (TBW)
W. SIRI
I
newly acquired air-conditioned trailers. The de-
BY =0.91 +0090 (TAW)
RCV =0.08+0.0474 (TBW)
BV
| wananauce { ICV
,
CAUCASIANS f BY
IN PACIFIC
RCV
similar to the one described by Palmer and
Roesch** and to the Hanford whole-body counter.’° It was installed on Rongelap in one of the
pert
L
1
20
Z
.
nee MARSHALLESE
—-— CAUCASIANS
1°" © MOORE
10
|
iN PACIFIC
|
30
i
40
TOTAL BODY WATER, LITERS
Figure 67.
60
counter and with movement equivalent to the
length of the body during the count.
The signal from the detector was picked up by 7
photomultiplier tubes mounted on the crystal, and
the gamma-ray spectrum was analyzed with a
400-channel pulse-height analyzer (RIDL). The
gamma-rayspectral data were read out onrolls of
adding-machinepaperfor immediate evaluation,
and on punched paper tape for subsequent data
processing which involved transfer of the data
from the punched paper tape to magnetic tape
and subsequent analysis in terms of radioisotopes
by a spectral stripping program on an IBM-7094