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Biology and Medicine
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MAJOR ACTIVITIES
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194 |
abstracts of United States papers presented orally are given in“hy
Appendix 13 of this report. The year’s activities in areas of special =.
interest to industry are described in Chapter VI, Part One.
es
,
.
BrookwaveN Mepicat ResearcH Reactor
The Brookhaven Medical Center at Brookhaven National Labora.
tory with its Medical Research Reactor * was dedicated December16.
Commissioners Willard F. Libby and John F. Floberg addresseq
the guests at the ceremony. Shields Warren, Pathologist at New
England Deaconess Hospital and Professor of Pathology, Harvard
University Medical School, who was the first Director of the Com-
mission’s Division of Biology and Medicine, delivered the dedicatory
address.
The newly completed Center, under construction for two years,
includes a tank-type reactor, a 48-bed hospital, laboratories for
studies in biochemistry, medical physics, microbiology, pathology,
and physiology. The reactor, the first to be designed for medical
research purposes was 99 percent complete, and final work on the
reactor building was completed as of December 31. Thereactoris
scheduled to go critical early in 1959 and, later in the year, will be
readyfor use with patients.
Sarety aT WEAPONS TESTS
Operation Hardtack; Pacific Phase
During the Pacific phase of Operation Hardtack at the Eniwetok
Proving Ground, the health and safety precautions® taken were
successful in limiting exposures to planned limits.
Radiation exposures. The highestoff-site whole bodyradiation exposure resulting from fallout caused by Operation Hardtack detonations
was at Rongelap Atoll but the total dose there from all Hardtack
tests will be less than one-half roentgen (0.57).
Except for a few
cases where the need to collect data justified acceptance of somewhat
higher doses, exposures of Joint Task Force personnel were within
‘See pp. 158-159, Twenty-fourth Semiannual Report to Congress (January-June 1958).
* See Appendix 10, Twenty-fourth Semiannua] Report to Congress (January-June 1958).
a
mn
national Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, and ad
th
Recent progress in biological and medical sciences as related
atomic energy were reported at the Unjted Nations Second Inter.