RE: Chernobyl thyroid doses ?

[Franta, Jaroslav]

Thank you Franz.

 

I guess I should have explained that, first of all, Zbigniew Jaworowski is a

former head of UNSCEAR (as I recall) and, secondly, that the

multi-thousand-rem thyroid doses I was refering to were mentioned in some

papers published in scientific journals like Nature or Science (sorry, I

don't have the precise reference info).

I was not surprised to see those kinds of dose figures at the time, having

some idea of the ability of the thyroid gland to concentrate iodine,

particularly in persons with iodine-deficient diets (typical of the region).

Also, I was aware of the fact that a high dose to one small organ was much

less serious than the same dose to the whole body (which would have been

lethal to everyone receiving it).

All this to say that I remain puzzled by the extremely wide range of thyroid

doses reported.

I suspect that this may be due to a very wide range of doses having a small

average over the whole population -- which might possibly lead to some

unwarranted conclusions about thyroid cancer rates.

Either way, it would be greatly appreciated if someone familiar with the

situation could explain.

 

PS. I almost forgot -- happy July 4 to our colleagues south of the border !

 

Jaro 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: Franz Schoenhofer [mailto:franz.schoenhofer@chello.at]

Sent: Friday July 04, 2003 12:43 AM

To: RADSAFE; Franta, Jaroslav

Subject: AW: Chernobyl thyroid doses ?





Dear Jaro,

 

Today is July 4th, 2003. The Chernobyl accident happend in April 1986. There

have been hundreds or rather thousands if not tens of thousands of

publications on this accident. There have even been not so few authored by

international authorative bodies like the IAEA, WHO etc. Many organisations

made their own estimations - unless they are checked and found correct I

would not recommend to use them. It seems natural that somebody who worked

for instance for the fire brigades had a dramatic higher I-131 uptake than a

peasant 500 km away. So, please inform me, what this discrepancies are

about? They have to happen, of course. 

 

Let me state one very crucial thing: Nobody is interested in the Chernobyl

accident any more, except a few groups who try to make money by installing

"emergency systems" in Europe and the same is true for TMI, for previous

accidents in the USA (IDAHO) and even more for "XXX" a swiss accident

resulting in meltdown.

 

Franz