Dosages from Natural Radioactivity and Cosmic Rays

1945-1964 WHO's Right to Health?

United States Atomic Energy Commission (USAEC) and UN agencies utilized techniques of power and negotiation to implement radiation exposure regulations. USAEC affiliated scientists' expertise was cultivated while establishing a radiation protection regime based on classified experiments. World Health Organization (WHO) leadership sought to manifest a human right to health, including a right to protection from radiation contamination. The careers of a few technical experts and interagency UN correspondence shows how American risk models of radiation regulation traveled and ultimately inhibited WHO attempts to frame radiation as a public health threat. The USAEC and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) navigated WHO's way of perceiving radiation with technical experts and bureaucratic and legislative means. This paper shows the underpinning at the UN of competing models of radiation regulation, one state centric and the other, an individual right to health. This narrative provides insights into the nature of the UN's current conceptualization of radiation regulation and argues for further research into UN, radiation, and human rights history.

Genetic and Somatic Effects of Carbon-14

On the basis of information about carbon-14 given by Libby, calculations are made of the predicted genetic and somatic effects of the carbon-14 produced by the testing of nuclear weapons. It is concluded that 1 year of testing (30 megatons of fission plus fusion) is expected to cause in the world (stimated future number of births per year 5 times the present number) an estimated total of about 55,000 children with gross physical or mental defects, 170,000 stillbirths and childhood deaths, and 425,000 embryonic and neonatal deaths. (There is an unknown amount of overlap of these three categories.) These numbers are about 17 times the numbers usually estimated as the probable effects of the fallout fission products from 1 year of testing. In addition, the somatic effects of bomb-test carbon-14 are expected to be about equal to those of fission products, including strontium-90, with respect to leukemia and bone cancer and greater than those of fission products with respect to diseases resulting from radiation damage to tissues other than bone tissue and bone marrow. All of the estimated numbers are subject to great uncertainty; they may be as much as 5 times too high or 5 times too low. The uncertainty in the estimation of the relative effects of carbon-14 and fission products in world-wide fallout is not so great.

Fallout Dosages at Washington, D.C

It has been assumed that the fission product conglomerate emits one gamma ray per beta particle throughout its lifetime. The fallout velocities are not accurately known, and in some cases the detonation and response times have been approximated. For these reasons, the dosages reported in this paper can be accurate in order of magnitude only. With these reservations, an infinity dose of 0.2 roentgen or less due to all explosions between January 1951 and May 1955 is reported for Washington, D.C. Therefore, it is probable that the total fallout from all weapons tests that have so far been conducted will produce only a fraction of the lifetime dosage due to natural radioactivity and cosmic radiation (6). Most of the dosage comes from the Nevada tests, and only a small part from the Pacific thermonuclear tests (7). Fission products contained in that part of the cloud of a thermonuclear explosion which extends above the level of precipitation is found to contribute only very slightly to the dosage at great distances. No analysis was carried out for air activity data taken at other locations, but their qualitative similarity to those taken in Washington suggests that infinity doses in most other locations in the northern hemisphere will not be greatly different. Present results are in essential agreement with two other measurements that have been reported. Eisenbud and Harley (8) have measured fallout deposited on gummed papers (9) at various locations in the United States and have found an average dose of 0.001 roentgen per year. Stewart, Crooks, and Fisher (10) have measured the activity of air, rainwater, and ground deposits in England and report an infinity dose of 0.055 roentgen. This somewhat lower figure may result from their greater distance from Nevada, which appears to be the source of most of the fallout in the United States. The authors wish to thank Dr. H. Friedman and Dr. L. B. Lockhart for their continued support and for many helpful discussions.