Re: 60 Minutes story on Savannah River

[Greg Jones <gejones@lbl.gov>]

Quite possibly a misunderstanding of terminology
As stated previously.....

from Rick_Strickert@radian.com
> There were claims of plutonium in the body and urine of at least one
worker,
> but no quantitative numbers or units were given.

from sandyfl@earthlink.net
The only quantification stated was that the one individual received a
"lifetime" limit based on his internal uptake of plutonium. Then the
story said that the individual was put back to work in the plutonium
cell. This doesn't make sense.

I saw the piece last night and think we *may* have read too much into
the statement about "receiving a lifetime dose".  There was an inference
that he had exceeded a limit but there's certainly other interpretations
of a "lifetime dose".  After thinking this over last night,  I came up
with at least two alternate yet plausible 'definitions' that do not have
to adhere to the traditional regulatory framework.

(1) The internal dose (not disclosed in the program) may have been
calculated over an individual's lifetime (we would call this a CEDE) and
explained to the worker that this is his "lifetime dose"

(2)  The assigned dose could be compared to natural/background sources
for purposes of perspective.  For example,  if the annual dose from
background is ~ 0.3 rem then for a typical lifetime of lets say 70
years.....this would yield a "lifetime dose" x.xxx rem.

In short, I don't think they explicitly stated that a lifetime dose
*limit* had been exceeded, simply that he had received a lifetime dose.
I would hope that anyone listening from Savanah River could clarify the
terminology without commenting on the specifics of the litigation case.

Greg Jones
Lawrence Berkeley Nat'l Lab
gejones@lbl.gov

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