212

Health Physics

August 2010, Volume 99, Number 2

Table 5. Projected proportion (in %) of total cancerrisk attributable to radioactive fallout, by population, cancersite,
and time period. Uncertainty distributions represented by their means and their 5" and 95™ percentiles.
Lifetime attributable

Attributable risk,

risk

Population group and cancer type
Rongelap Island and Ailinginae exposed
community
Leukemia
Thyroid
Stomach
Colon
Other solid
Total
Utrik community
Leukemia
Thyroid
Stomach
Colon
Other solid
Total
Kwajalein and other mid-latitude atolls
Leukemia
Thyroid
Stomach
Colon
Other solid
Total
Majuro and other southern latitude atolls,
plus the Rongelap control
population
Leukemia
Thyroid
Stomach
Colon
Other solid
Total
Entire Marshall Islands population
exposed at any time between 1948
and 1970
Leukemia
Thyroid
Stomach
Colon
Other solid
Total

Mean

5%

1948-2008

95%

Mean

5%

Attributable risk from

2009

95%

Mean

5%

95%

78
95
48
64
43
55

39
87
11
36
20
28

91
97
73
78
54
69

83
95
44
60
48
59

43
85
9.2
32
23
30

93
97
71
75
61
73

63
95
52
68
32
47

29
91
13
40
17
26

77
97
77
81
43
62

19
71
4.8
9.4
6.7
10

4.3
32
0.64
3.2
1.5
2.4

45
86
14
19
14
22

26
69
4.5
8.4
6.8
11

5.4
29
0.63
2.8
1.8
2.7

57
86
12
17
15
25

9.0
74
5.0
10
6.5
9.0

2.5
35
0.67
3.1
1.1
1.8

17
87
17
21
14
19

8.4
25
1.9
2.3
1.4
2.2

1.7
6.1
0.26
0.73
0.34
0.50

20
45
3.7
4.8
2.9
4.8

15
28
2.8
3.3
2.3
3.5

2.9
7.0
0.37
1.1
0.60
0.86

36
49
8.5
6.6
4.6
7.9

2.9
21
1.5
1.8
0.96
1.4

0.75
5.1
0.20
0.57
0.20
0.30

3.5
39
4.3
3.8
2.0
3.0

2.2
12
0.47
0.69
0.48
0.76

0.41
2.5
0.069
0.23
0.11
0.16

6.0
27
1.3
1.4
1.0
1.8

4.2
13
0.63
0.90
0.65
1.1

0.67
2.7
0.089
0.31
0.18
0.27

12
29
1.8
2.0
1.4
2.7

0.76
11
0.39
0.59
0.37
0.53

0.22
2.2
0.058
0.20
0.071
0.11

1.4
25
1.2
1.2
0.81
1.2

5.1
21
1.2
1.7
1.0
1.6

0.96
6.0
0.17
0.59
0.27
0.41

12
39
3.4
3.5
2.0
3.4

9.3
24
1.6
2.4
1.6
2.6

1.6
6.5
0.23
0.80
0.46
0.67

23
43
4.7
4.9
3.2
5.6

1.7
17
0.94
1.5
0.66
0.99

0.46
5.0
0.14
0.46
0.16
0.22

3.1
33
2.8
2.9
1.3
1.9

71% (32% to 86%) of those in the Utrik population, 25%
(6% to 45%) in the mid-latitude atoll populations, and
12% (2.5% to 27%) of those in the southern atoll

populations (Table 5). These numbers reflect the large
effect of exposure to radioactive iodine in fallout, primarily due to the active uptake of ingested iodine which
is used by the thyroid gland for the production of thyroid
hormone. From another perspective, the projected 50
lifetime excess of thyroid cancers in the exposed MI
population is 30% of the total projected excess of 170
total lifetime cancers, while the corresponding proportion
of projected baseline cancers, 190 thyroid cancers out of
11,000 baseline cancers of all types, is less than 2% of
the total (Table 4). Roughly the same percentages (thyroid cancer is ~30% ofthe total cancer excess and ~2%

of the total cancer baseline) hold for each of the population subsets represented in Table 4.
If not for the large contribution to total cancers due
to exposure to radioiodines in fallout, the fraction of
leukemia risk (excluding chronic lymphocytic leukemia,
or CLL, which is not included in the BEIR VII model)

attributable to radiation exposure might be expected to
dominate as it does, for example, in the LSS cohort of
atomic bomb survivors (Preston et al. 2003) for whom

radioactive fallout was at most a very minor contributor
to total radiation dose (Young and Kerr 2005). Overall,
non-CLL leukemia accounts for about 4% of total projected radiation-related risk with some variation by
sub-population, compared to 1.3% of projected baseline
risk. Attributable risk for leukemia is high for the

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