RADIATION STANDARDS, INCLUDING FALLOUT
23
activity in the soil is one of the important contributors to the material
that gets into your body through the food chain. The kind of house
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you live in may influence yourradiation dose.
Senator Arken. Atmospheric conditions would not ordinarily influence any wide range?
._Dr. Taytor. That-is correct; yes.
Senator AusEen.; Thank you.
Representative Batrs. Dr. Taylor, let us assume that these figures
are correct. What dothey mean?! Would you not haveto really know
all of the elements that go into the computation before they take on
any significance? For instance, a new machine widely used with a
very.low dose will throw these figures into a cocked hat. We are more
interested in the range so we know what the dangers are.at the upper
level rather than an average figure without any background as how
it was arrived at, which could be rather meaningless.: As a matter
of fact, the real danger in certain cases could have skyrocketed and
still have averages because of a new machine on a very low dose level
that would bring the average way down.
.
Dr. Taytor. It is quite possible that some new equipment and new
technique could substantially decrease the dose. On the other hand,
you don’t get any results, diagnostic or therapeutic, without exposing
the patient to the direct beam of radiation. All you can do by way
of improving the situation is to avoid unnecessary exposure; to cut
down some leakage from the tube housings; to better shield parts of
the body you don’t need to expose andso on.
;
Representative Bares. In the event that these patients were not
exposed to radiation they would not then be involved in these particular figures, would they ?
;
Dr. Tayxor. I am not quite sure I follow you. This is an average
per capita figure. You estimate——
Representative Barss. But only for those who have been exposed ?
Dr. Tartor. No, this includes the entire population in this country,
for example. You make an estimate as best you can of all the radiation that was delivered to all of the people in the United States. This
may be only 10 percent of the people. Then you divide this dose by
the number of people in the United States. This gives you your
average per capita dose. For genetic purposes, this is the figure that
Is significant,
Representative Barss. The original statement I made about a new
machine with a low dose would have an impact. Also your second
statement to the effect that perhaps now they are not treating people
with radiation that maybe previously they did. But you would really
have to know what goes into these figures to understand the
significance.
Dr. Taxtor. Yes, if you want a highly accurate quantitative answer
to this question. This means virtually the measurement of every
single individual exposure that is made of people. This is physically
impossible. The Public Health Service may in a few years time—possibly a decade—throughits survey activities provide us with a better
cross-section of the radiation exposure problem than we nowhave.
At the present timethis is the best that can be done, and I would be
the last one to say it is very accurate. Certainly the trend is clear
enough to be, I think, quite acceptable. It certainly is, in my mind.