A TWENTY-SEVEN YEAR STUDY GF SELECTED LOS ALAMOS PLUTONIUM WORKERS
Compiled and Written by
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L. H. Hempelmann, C. R. Richmond, and G. L. Voelz
ABSTRACT
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Twenty-five male subjects who worked with plutonium during World War II under extraordinarily crude working conditions have been followed medically for a period of 27 years.
Within the past year, 21 of these men have been examined at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, and 3 more will be studied in 1973.
In addition to physical examinations and
laboratory studies (complete blood count, blood chemistry profile, and urinalysis), roentgenograms were taken of the chest, pelvis, knee, and teeth. The chromosomes of lymphocytes
cultured from the peripheral blood and cells exfoliated from the pulmonary tract were also
studied. Urine specimens assayed for plutonium gave a calculated current body burden
(excluding the lungs) ranging from 0.005 to 0.42 uCi, and low-energy radiation emitted by
intemally deposited transuranic elements in the chest disclosed lung burdens probably of
less than approximately 0.01 uCi. To date, none of the medical findings in the group can
be attributed definitely to internally deposited plutonium.
The bronchial cells of several
of the subjects showed moderate to marked metaplastic change, but the significance of these
changes is not clear.
Diseases and physical changes characteristic of a male population
Because of the small body burdens on the order
entering its sixth decade were observed.
of the maximum permissible level in these men so heavily exposed to plutonium compounds, we
conclude that the body has pretective mechanisms which are effective in discriminating
against these materials following some types of occupational exposures. This is presum-
ably explained by the insolubility of many of its compounds.
Plutonium is more toxic than
radium if deposited in certain body tissues, especially bone; however, from the practical
point of view, plutonium seems to be less hazardous to handle.
I,
INTRODUCTION
II.
PROCESSING
This is the story of how 25 young men were
heavily exposed to plutonium at what is now the Los
The potential danger of exposure to plutonium
Alamos Scientific Laboratory (at Los Alamos, New
was recognized early in 1944 by its discoverer,
Mexico) in the days of the Manhattan Project during
Glenn Seaborg.-
World War II and of what has happened to them in
of the radioactive properties of plutonium and
the subsequent 27 years.
Tee: a
SAFETY PROBLEMS CONCERNED WITH PLUTONIUM
All but a few of the sub-
He was aware of the similarity
radium and of the extreme toxicity of the latter
jects of this study were college science majors who
element which caused bone cancer in man after
were drafted into the Army and assigned to a Special
deposition of microgram quantities in the body.
Engineering Detachment of the Manhattan Project.
In an effort to learn more about the biological
All were sent to Los Alamos (Project Y)
and metabolic properties of plutonium (and, hope-
in 1944 or
1945 and given various technical jobs in the Chem-
fully, thereby to avert another disaster such as
istry and Metallurgy Research Division.
happened in the radium dial painting industry
capacities,
In these
they were engaged in processing pluto-
nium prior to fabrication and testing of the first
atomic bomb.
Almost all of these subjects had body
burdens of plutonium estimated from the urine
assay
for plutonium used at Los Alamos before 1950 that
ranged from 0.1 to 1.2 ugl (0.006 to 0.08 UCi).
in the 1920's), Seaborg gave about 10 mg of plutonium out of the first half gram produced to Joseph
Hamilton of the Crocker Radiation Laboratory in
Berkeley, California, for biological experimenta-
tion.
Thanks to Seaborg's foresightedness, many
basic facts related to the biclogy of plutonium