Radithor - radium concentration -Reply

[FRAMEP@ORAU.GOV]

Hey Jim:

Thanks for the "cosmopolitan" comment - made my day. This past
weekend wasn't that great but still I'm looking forward to the next.

To learn how Roger Macklis (a fine fellow who gave me a bottle of
Radithor), dealt with the Byers case you need to refer to "The
Radiotoxicity of Radithor" JAMA Aug 1990 Vol 264 p619-621. The Sci.
American article was for popular consumption so to speak.

He derived the radium burden of Byers not from an assumed intake but
from an exhumation and analysis performed in 1965. The measured 
concentration in the skeleton  in 1965 was on the order of 44.25 Bq/g
of Ra-226 and 1.07 Bq/g  Ra-228 which then had to be backcorrected to
1930.

He apparently estimated the dose by a couple of means  one of which
came up with an average skeletal dose of 18.25 Gy (1825 rad) from
alphas.

A problem with estimating intake based on an typical concentration
per bottle is that the recipes varied so much, thats why he didn't
use that approach. My bottle is empty but probably has 0.5 to 1.0
mikes of 226 as residual activity! 

Another problem is that Byers might have used other radium nostrums
in addition to Radithor. Some people were getting injected with 10
mikes per week by physicians!

P.S. Macklis also wrote a great article on hormesis that folks might
(or might not) want to read: J Nuc Med. Vol 32. Feb 1991 p 350. To
summarize, he doesn't think much of the idea. 


Best wishes

Paul Frame
Professional Training Programs
Oak Ridge Associated Universities
framep@orau.gov