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RADIOACTIVITY IN MAN
Beta Burns in the Marshallese. In the Rongelap people white,
powdery fallout material clung tenaciously to their skin causing
itching and burning with irritation of the eyes and lachrymation
during the first 24 to 48 hrs. It was over a week before complete
decontamination was possible. It was impossible to calculate the
skin dose with any degree of accuracy. About 90°¢ of the people
developed spotty beta burns on exposed parts of their skim (not
covered by clothing) with a large number (90%of the children
and 30% of the adults) developing patchy epilation (see Figure
5). These lesions appeared about 12 to 14 days after exposure.
No erythema was noted in the Rongelap people. possibly due to
the darkness of their skins. Characteristically, lesions first appeared
as dark pigmented macules, papules or patchy thickening of the
skin followed by desquamation leaving depigmentedareas. Vesiculation was only seen on the dorsa of the feet (see Figure 6). Most
of the burns were superficial and had completely re-epithelialized
and repigmented in a few weeks. However, fourteen people had
deeper burns which took longer to heal with some scarring. atrophy
and varying degrees of pigment aberration remaining (see Figure
7). Some of these changes still persist six years after exposure.
However. no chronic radiation dermatitis or malignant changes
have been noted. Regrowth of hair was noted beginning about
three months after exposure and was complete and normal by six
months after exposure.
Internal Hazard
Acute Exposure
Exposure to an acute fallout field 1s not likely to result in suff-
cient internal absorption of radioactive materials to produce an
acute radiation syndrome. Indeed. an individual would receive a
lethal dose of gamma radiation long before he could accumulate
sufficient radioactive material internally for the dose to be lethal.
Therefore, the internal hazard is secondary to both whole body
penetrating exposure and beta radiationof the skin. Theeffect of
chronic, long-term exposure to internal fallout is another story.
The internal absorption of fallout material occurs largely
through ingestion with relatively small amounts via inhalation
since the particle size of fallout is not likely to be small enough to
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