RE: Health effects near nuclear power plants

["Neil, David M" <neildm@id.doe.gov>]

To throw in another complication, feed is trucked around all over. Hay is
one of the big cash crops here in Idaho, and it heads south by the semi
loads.  Lots of semi loads at times.

There is also a lot of cheese produced here and shipped all over; the
parmesan you put on your pasta probably was made at the plant in Twin Falls.

The point is that considering bioconcentration and the randomization of food
sources, any putative local effect would be "lost in the weeds"
statistically.  The Tooth Fairy project has the positive effect of returning
money to circulation that would otherwise not be, but scientifically, I
think it is aptly named. (Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, ... )

Dave Neil		neildm@id.doe.gov

Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface.

On Wednesday, April 26, 2000 6:53 PM, ruth_weiner
[SMTP:ruth_weiner@email.msn.com] wrote:
<snip>
> I question whether collecting teeth provides any useful information,
because
> the Sr-90 would be from dietary sources like milk or some vegetables that
> incorporate calcium (and therefore strontium).  So the Sr-90 in child's
baby
> teeth would come from the milk  the child drank, which comes from a dairy,
> which gets it from dairy farms whose cows get it from fallout on grass
they
> graze on or other food they eat.   Since dairies blend milk from different
> farms, and cows are fed from more than a single source, it must be nearly
> impossible to connect a particular tooth with the grass or other feed that
> received Sr-90 fallout.  The Hanford dose reconstruction study, if I am
not
> mistaken, found that the largest radioiodine doses were from milk sold in
> Moses Lake, Washington, which is more than a hundred miles generally
upwind
> from Hanford (please correct me if I am wrong about this -- I am going
from
> memory).  The connection was made by carefully tracing where the dairies
got
> their milk from during the 1950s and 1960s.

************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html