Radithor - radium concentration -Reply

[JMUCKERHEIDE@delphi.com]

Paul,

Thanks.
 
> 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.

Rowland notes that new data on the loss of radium makes earlier estimates of
the original body burden too low, as a function of the burden, but not how
much (work in progress?)  On the other hand since he died early, the numbers
are probably better than for high dose cases who lived for some years.
(Anything about other necrosis cases?) 

> 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! 

Oh, I wouldn't use it as a scientific determination. Just an imprecise order
of magnitude description in the absense of better data -- and you have some
better data.  

> 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. 
> 
OTOH, relating Byers' ingestion to concerns about indoor radon...  ??   :-)
 
> Best wishes
> 
> Paul Frame

Thanks.

Regards, Jim