ini ‘heh. Beebe Eat le eee a ke ween ee we a person with from animal experiments suggested that time that (at a maximum permissible body burden ryboxes, pen in of 1 ug} would excrete only 5 x 10” ug (50 pg) or minute per counts alpha (7 plutonium per day isions, pen 50 pg per 24-hour specimen). nose Oe Suggesting that the body burdens of plutonium were many times the acceptable levels. When a system of urine collection designed to minimize contamination ef the urine specimens had been perfected (see Appendix B), the radioactivity of the urine samples Nevertheless, the decreased precipitously. Table III shows early ‘ried assay method gave us our first hope of estimating how much plutonium had actually been deposited in estimates of body burdens of plutonium based on ist and the bodies of our workers. urine assays, as well as the number of high nose minute, Beginning on March 11, 1944, urine samples of ens of his - @ point c ity of all high nose counts for each subject .° To the consternation of everyone, the Although the correlation between the number of or oftener. tionary re- radioactivity of the initial 24-hour urine samples high nose counts and body burden is not good, 8 of wag of the order of hundreds of counts per minute, the 11 persons with more than 20 high nose counts TABLE III cy bomb RESULTS OF URINE ASSAYS AND NOSE SWAB COUNTS CONDUCTED ON illic LOS ALAMOS PLUTONIUM OPERATORS SHOWING POSITIVE EXPOSURE cally Subject ibs. Number" ‘rmic Average Exposure Estimated Body (ug Late 1944 0.5 - 1.0 2 Late 1944 O.1 - 0.5 and 3 May 1945 1.2 the 4 June 1945 1.2 mM metal 1 Addi- 5 June 1945 1.2 re car- 6 June 1945 1.0 a the Fused -n i, the ive a Sltnce, Callen >. oA OB mk the lted swipes (over 50 counts per minute} and total activ- members of the Recovery Group were assayed monthly 1.0 Total Number High Nose Swabs 1° 3° Total Activity in? High Nose Swabs (cpm) 11,606 290 37 24 55 4,267 14,968 27,246 32 28 60 22 8,859 15,699 36,407 39,778 7 June 1945 8 June 1945 9 July 1945 1.0 10 July 1945 0.8 July 1946 0.4 24 6 5,334 il 12 July 1945 0.4 23 8,607 13 July 1945 0.3 16 July 1945 0.1 1? August 1945 0.7 14 18 August 1945 0.6 9 19 August 1945 0.5 20 - 0.7 2,016 5,403 7,762 6,429 2,266 August 1945 0.3 21 August 1945 0.3 22 August 1945 23 0.3 September 1945 0.3 24 September 1945 o.1 2,541 5,107 4,984 25 September 1945 0.1 26 October 1945 0.3 27 October 1945 0.3 a 28 22 11 2,417 7,470 11,688 478 18,342 Subject Nos. 14 and 15 were dropped because of the death of one subject of coronary heart disease and the low body burden of the other as determined by modern assay techniques. b This column was added to the table given in reference 6 and represents the sum of all high nose counts (both nostrils). c Incomplete records were available for these cases. 11