RE: Tracking of Radiation Exposure in Bomb Work is Questioned

["Robert M. Loesch" <loesch@spok.eh.doe.gov>]

Fellow readers:

Mr. Makhijani reviewed a summary that our office put together for General
Counsel.  GC was considering the impact of future litigation that was related
to worker lifetime exposures that exceeded a particular threshold value - 
i.e. what would be the implications of having to determine a lifetime dose
for large numbers of workers.  DOE stated that in the immediate past, the
regulations were in the form of AEDE not CEDE.  In addition, in the much
earlier years, controls were in the form of Body Burdens, not dose.  We
stated that DOE did not have dose (CEDE) information on these early intakes
and it would be enormously cumbersome and expensive to try to calculate
a lifetime dose for all workers.  Mr. Makhijani interpreted this to mean that
DOE did not measure or account for internal exposures.  He gave our 
office an opportunity to comment and clarify, but evidently chose not to
modify his editorial.

A summary of the afore mentioned article can be found at CNN's site at

	http://www.cnn.com/US/9711/07/radiation.exposure/index.html

Bob Loesch

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            _/ _/                _/ _/              _/_/_/_/            Robert M. Loesch
          _/     _/           _/     _/           _/                      US Department of Energy
        _/         _/     _/           _/       _/                      EH-52, GTN, 270CC
      _/          _/   _/               _/    _/_/_/_/            19901 Germantown Road	
    _/         _/       _/           _/     _/                      Germantown, MD  20874-1290
  _/        _/           _/      _/       _/                      Tel: 301 903-4443;  Fax: -7773
_/ _/ _/                _/ _/          _/_/_/_/            loesch@spok.eh.doe.gov
=======================================================
              "The definition of a public health disaster is a catastrophe so large
                   that an epidemiologic study can detect it."    David Ozonoff




-----Original Message-----
From:	Joyce Davis [SMTP:JOYCED@DNFSB.GOV]
Sent:	Monday, November 10, 1997 3:48 PM
To:	Multiple recipients of list
Subject:	Tracking of Radiation Exposure in Bomb Work  is Questioned

Tracking of Radiation Exposure in Bomb Work  is Questioned

Radsafers:
     The subject headline appeared in a NY Times item on sunday.  It refers to the fact that in the past internal and
external exposures were not summed at AEC/DOE.  The item is based on a report by Arjun Makhijani in the Institute
for Energy and Environmental Research  newsletter "Science for Democratic Action".  The article doesn't seem to
be up on the IEER website yet.  Has anyone seen it ?   What's going on ?
J. P.  Davis
joyced@dnfsb.gov