-3-+
would be required to produce observable effects in the popula
tion.
The U. S. Government agencies have been continuously
concerned with maintaining this condition of very small test
radiation hazard ang have never neglected study and action
to reduce it.
°“
I do not
‘What I should like
“4s extremely small
everywhere take as
mean to say that there is no risk at all.
to demonstrate to you is. that the risk
compared with other risks which persons
a normal part of their lives. At the
same time, I ask you to weigh this risk against what I believe would be the far greater risk--to freedom-loving
people everywhere. in the world--of not maintaining our
. defenses against. the totalitarian forces at large in the
world until such time as safeguarded disarmament may be
achieved.
Of course, a workable, safeguarded system of
international disarmament is a paramount objective of the
United. States Government, and one which we must work for
and hope and pray will be achieved.
To go into more detail on the question of risk
from world-wide radioactive fallout, there are two possible
hazards.
The first is the genetic hazard due to radiation
of the reproductive organs by penetrating gamma radiation,
and the second is the hazard due to the irradiation of the
bones by assimilated strontium-90, taken up largely through
food.
These two possible hazards should not be confused;
there is no reason to fear genetic hazard from strontium-
99, since it accumulates in the bones and does not appreciably irradiate the reproductive organs.
In order to understand the degree of these hazards,
it is necessary to compare the amount of radiation dosage
received from fallout with the amount -of radiation dosage
normally received by all living things because of the
_ natural radioactivity in the environment.
In this way, it
is possible to put the hazards from weapons testing into
the context of normal human experience.
When this kind of comparison is made, it becomes
apparent that we all carry in our bodies, and have in our
surroundings, amounts of radioactivity very much larger than
those derived from radioactive fallout.
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