RADIATION STANDARDS, INCLUDING FALLOUT
27
Is this the case of going into social and economic factors that have
not been really thought out entirely ?
Dr. Taytor. Yes. It is not a case, Mr. Ramey, of their not having
been thought out. There has been a tremendous amount of thought
given to these questions, but there is nothing to grab hold of.
You
cannot describe risk in units in the same sense that you can describe
dose, for example. We don’t know precisely what these risks are. We
speculate on the risks on the basis of animal experiments extrapolated
to man. We use judgment and we use consensus principally in untangling different concepts of the professional people working in the
field.
But you don’t have any sound numerical basis on which you
can evaluate risk, or compare risk to risk. You can’t compare the risk
of automobile driving with the risk of working with radiation. They
are entirely different things, but they are both risks. Until you can do
that you have to use your best judgment.
Representative Price. Dr. Taylor, on page 8 where you are talking
about fallout from weapons testing, you say that at its peak levels
fallout has contributed less than 1.5 percent of our average per capita
dose, of 2 millirems per year. (See footnotes 1 and 2, p. 26.) How
about the recently reported levels of iodine 131 in the Midwest?
Dr. Tayztor. I am sorry; I have not tried to put those figures into
this context. Somebody else can undoubtedly answer that question.
Representative Price. I wonder if Dr. Dunham could comment on
that question.
Dr. Dunuam. I don’t have al] the figures.
Representative Price. Do you intend to cover that in your presentation ?
Dr. Dunnam. I think Dr. Chadwick from the Public Health Service
was planning to provide those data.
Representative Price. You are familiar with the widespread story
about the excessive fallout in the St. Louis milkshed and other areas
of the Midwest in recent weeks. Later on in the hearings we will get
some comment on that?
Dr. Dunyam. Thatis right.
Representative Price. Are there any other questions of Dr. Taylor?
6 Senator Anperson. I would like to know where he gets the 1.5
gure.
Dr. Tayior. It is a figure supplied by Dunning.
Senator AnpERson. Whatis that based on ?
Reidea
LVTTRaec
Dr. Taytor. Again it is based on the analysis of the kind of infor-
mation that was fed into the U.N. Scientific Committee from various
sources of which the U.S. delegation probably wasone.
Senator Anprerson. What was the figure that the U.S. scientists
turned in as to what they thought the fallout amounted to?
Dr. Tayztor, I don’t know their figure. Perhaps Dr. Dunham does.
Senator Anprrson. Is this 1.5 a published figure? This other one
was not. published. We cannot check it. Is this a published figure?
Dr. Tayror. It is a figure that will be published.?
Senator Anprrson. Will be. How will we checkit?
Dr. Taytor. It will be available in July of this year.
Senator Anperson. Along withthe otherfigures?
7. 8. Taylor, “Radiation Exposure in Realistic Perspective,” Physics Today, June 1962.
3
mire 7,
86853—62—pt. 1