Monitoring distant fallout: the role of the Atomic Energy Commission Health and Safety Laboratory during the Pacific tests, with special attention to the events following BRAVO.

The fallout from test BRAVO in March 1954 has had scientific, political, and social implications that have continued for more than 40 years. The test resulted in serious injury to the people of the Marshall Islands and 23 men on a nearby Japanese fishing boat. Prior to BRAVO there was insufficient appreciation of the dangers of fallout to people living downwind from surface or near-surface explosions of megaton weapons. In the absence of sufficient preplanning for fallout monitoring beyond the test-sites of earlier smaller yield tests, and as a result of the concern of the photographic film manufacturers, the Atomic Energy Commission Health and Safety Laboratory, now the Department of Energy Environmental Measurements Laboratory, was requested to develop a program of fallout surveillance. Beginning with Operation IVY in 1952, these surveys included aerial monitoring of the islands of the mid and western Pacific, as well as establishment of fallout monitoring stations in the United States and abroad. The first evidence of the post-BRAVO fallout was detected by a Atomic Energy Commission Health and Safety Laboratory instrument installed on the atoll of Rongerik, where 28 military personnel were stationed. The results of radiation surveys conducted immediately after BRAVO, as well as the reports of medical investigations, radioecological studies, and dose reconstruction that have been conducted by many laboratories over the years have been available from the beginning in unclassified form. However, from the time of the fallout, and continuing to the present, there have been many unanswered questions about what happened during the hours immediately after the fallout was reported. No formal investigation of the circumstances of the fallout was ever conducted, and there were serious misrepresentations of the facts in the official statements made at the time.

An assessment of soil-to-plant concentration ratios for some natural analogues of the transuranic elements.

A field study was conducted in an area of enhanced, natural radioactivity to assess the soil to edible vegetable concentration ratios (CR = concentration in dry vegetable/concentration in dry soil) of 232Th, 230Th, 226Ra, 228Ra, and the light rare earth elements (REE's) La, Ce and Nd. Twenty-nine soil and 42 vegetable samples consisting of relatively equal numbers of seven varieties were obtained from 11 farms on the Pocos de Caldas Plateau in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. This region is the site of a major natural analogue study to assess the mobilization and retardation processes affecting Th and the REE's at the Morro do Ferro ore body and U series radionuclides at a nearby open pit U mine. Thorium (IV) serves as a chemical analogue for quadrivalent Pu and the light REE's (III) as chemical analogues for trivalent Am and Cm. The geometric mean CR's (all times 10(-4] decreased as 228Ra (148) greater than 226Ra (76) greater than La (5.4) greater than Nd (3.0) = Ce (2.6) greater than 232Th (0.6), or simply as M (II) greater than M (III) greater than M (IV). These differences may reflect the relative availability of these metals for plant uptake. Significant differences were found in the CR's (for any given analyte) among many of the vegetables sampled. The CR's for the different analytes were also highly correlated. The reasons for the correlations in CR's seen among elements with such diverse chemistries as Ra-REE or Ra-Th are not clear but are apparently related to the essential mineral requirements or mineral status of the different vegetables sampled. This conclusion is based on the significant correlations obtained between the Ca content of the dried vegetables and the CR's for all of the elements studied.

Have we overlooked important cohorts for follow-up studies? Report of the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology Conference of World War II-era Industrial Health Specialists.

During the World War II era large segments of the industrial work force suffered heavy exposure to toxic materials. Often there followed episodes of acute toxic illness, which may have been precursors of other effects, as yet unidentified. Yet adequate follow-up studies to document the subsequent health history of these populations have not been undertaken. Such studies should be initiated while knowledgeable persons and necessary records may still be found. Existing epidemiologic data bases, constructed after considerable effort, must be preserved in an archive for the benefit of future researchers. It is essential to identify and characterize important present-day cohorts now, although their experiences of interest to scientists may not occur for many years.

Epidemiological aspects of beryllium-induced nonmalignant lung disease: a 30-year update.

The unusual epidemiology of beryllium disease observed in the early studies of beryllium disease led in 1951 to the hypothesis that the chronic form of the disease is the result of an acquired sensitization to beryllium or its compounds. After 30 years, the role of sensitization has been confirmed in a number of laboratory and clinical studies. The unusual epidemiological features first summarized by Sterner and Eisenbud continue to be evident. The early studies also led to formulation of standards that have resulted in effective control of both the acute and chronic pulmonary forms of beryllium disease. No case of acute chemical pneumonitis has been reported among beryllium workers in about 15 years, and the number of chronic cases has diminished greatly despite a marked increase in the use of beryllium.