SESSION III 165 EISENBUD: Yes, and the radioiodine problem would be greatly potentiated in areas where there are crops and forage and dairy cows. This is manageable in a variety of ways. But I don't think the problem is anything like what you would have from a nuclear weapon. I've often thought that the single thing a person could do in a metropolis in the event of an attack, assuming that the weather conditions permit it, would be to get in a amall boat—and the smaller the better-——and get out in the middle of a lake and just stay there. DUNHAM: With an umbrella! [Laughter] EISENBUD: Well, you would get your beta burns in that situation and you could probably take care of that, too. Ifthe Japanese had bzen “ona larger boat they all probably would have died. One thing that saved the Japancse was that it was a small boat and they were not in the middle of an infinite plane. Uf they were, the dose could have been as much as three times higher. DONALDSON: It rained a great deal, too. EISENBUD: If there are not too many other boats there, of course, you might get by. SPEAR: There are lots of ways in which you can help yourse?t, WARREN: As Ralph says, there are lots of ways in which you cau help yourself. You can get under a roof that is fairly high and the wooden building would get you some attenuation. EISENBUD: We're not considering mass evacuations, blast, fire and things like that. CONARD: I might say another word or t»o about the treatment as- pects. Of course, we know that under the best of hospital ccuditions we Can save a person from two or three times: the LD-50 dose, per-~ haps, vy giving him very careful attention with blood transfusions, platelet concentrations (and perhaps white cell concentrations}, the use of antibiotics and by maintaining fluid balance, and so forth. But it really takea quite a hospital staff to take care of cven one serious radiation casualty. So this sort of thing would be out of the question during the time of nuclear warfare. I think the best we could hope for is to stock up on the antibiotics and perhaps plasma and have these things located at strategic areas for use.