FIELD THE SHORTER-TERM BIOLOGICAL HAZARDS OF A FALLOUT 218 cocoanuts. I was thinking that possibly strontium might follow that. Do youhavefigures? Dr. Waites. Just one sample of breadfruit was recovered, and it was not sufficiently active to warrant complete analysis. Dr. Cuapwicx. I did sort of a limited dietary survey on someof the natives out there and found that breadfruit was one of the principal articles of their diet, and a very important one. To reassure Dr. Cohn, about the clams as nearly as I could understand it, iho onlv seafood the natives ate to any extent at all was the fish. They didn’t seem to eat the clams or crabs or langousta, the type of lobster they have out there. Dr. Conarp (BNL). It might be of interest that last May the one death that we had in the Rongelap people, a man 45 years old, who died of hypertensive heart disease, we obtained an sutopsy and the bone specimens were examined at the New York Operations Office. The levela were very, very low in activity. There was a slight amount of strontium, at the samelevel we find in the autopsies on the American bones. The urine of the Rongelap people at 2 years postexposure showed very lowlevels of activity. [think cerium, praseodymium about 6 disintegrations in 24 hours, and a slight amount of strontium 90; and a very small amount of cesium. I would also like to add that these people during the first 2 days lived under extremely bad environmental contamination. I think it is Of interest that after 2 years they have such lowlevels of body burden. Dr. Linpnene (UCLA). As you gather, we PUBLIC HEALTH IMPLICATIONS OF SHORT TERM HAZARDS By J. G. Tern, Jr. are pretty well convineed that this distance U.S. Publie [Health Service, Washington, D.C. factor is pretty real in regard to the distribution of the fission product. One is tempted to experiment with the fallout patterns with those in the Pacifie as compared to those in the continental States. These are much more extensive. The figures J have secn seem to suggest that the islands that are being sampled in the Pacific would correspond to areas very close to ground zero on the continent. Do you have any experiences in the Pacific (hat would let you comment whetherthe stronGumor iodine samples might be much higher if you could sample effectively 1,000 or 500 miles out. | don’t care to direct this question to anyone in particular. lation. It is just pure specu- Dr. Coun. No, we don’t have any specific information on that. A number of islands were studied. They varied by distances of several hundred miles. Again the concentrations were roughly proportional to the dis- tance and depend on the fallout pattern and so forth. Does this answer your question? Dr. Linppere. Yes. Dr, Terriuu. Mr. Chairman and members of the symposium, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to be able to talk to you and to exchange views with you at a meeting of this | } type. It is a real opportunity for the Public Health Service and I think we should all thank you for inviting us to this meeting, and for giving us an opportunity to learn of your research and investigations in these various fields. Tf we trace back in history a bit, wefind that this pattern of cooperation between the Public Health Service and the military departments and the AKC hasquite a historical background. Somevery specific things were done during the Spanish American War, World War I, and World War II. The Public Health Service had a. few officers assigned to the Manhaltan Engi- neer District. The Department of Defense has helped in our training activities. Other more recent examples are our cooperative projects with the Atomic Energy Commission in Nevada and with Joint Task Force Seven in the Pacific. In addition to these specifics, of course, there is & constant interchangeof information through various scientific meetings. From the public health viewpoint, one of the principles that we must bear in mind is the concept of total dose. From our standpointit really matters little whether the population as a whole receives their limiting dose in a serics of acute exposures or in very small amounts on a more continuous basis. At least that is what all of the authorities in this field generally seem to agree upon, even though they might not all agree on the specific limits. In arriving at the standards that we talk aboutin technical mectings, and that are published in the newspapers, we feel that there is a great Jack of human data, and that all of the standards leave much to be desired from the standpoint of explaining differences of opinion to the public in terms of humandata rather than animal data, extrapolations and calculations. This is something that weall have to live with, but we have to recognize it as u real need. We hope that with the aid of such groups, as are represented here, and by other means, to obtain better information in this arca.. Now, in terms of weapons tests, which are withus all the time, or moreor less all the time, as contrasted with actual nuclear warfare, which we hope will never be with us, there are a scriés of public health phases that J would like to outline, and explain to you, with reference to the prevention of radiation exposure. The first phases are actually in the hands of the AEC and the Department of Defense. This is clear to many of you, but all of you may not realize what an important public health job the planing groups in AEC and in the Department of Defense do in this regard. Oneof the things they do is to select weapons or devices to minimize fallout. Others are the selection of the method of detonation, timing, place, and overall weather conditions in such a way that thetotal radiation load on the popula- tion is reduced. Jn these areas thefirst steps of preventive work rest with people who are represented al this meeting. Thenext. phasealso is largely a matter for the test organizations to carry out. Itis a matter of operational measurement. Scientifically these are based on research and special projects that you carry on at the test sites. However, they 219