Re: Potassium Iodide -Reply

["J. J. Rozental" <josrozen@netmedia.net.il>]

At 10:06 PM 7/9/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Since 1981 I worked for Kiev Regional Department of Health and
>performed environmental monitoring of the Chernobyl Nuc.Power Plant. I
>was lucky enough having KI capsules in my Emergency Kit which I
>administered to my family. I spent about seven months after explosion
>near to the station as a liquidater. Regular check up doesn't show any
>thyroid abnormality.  I left USSR in 1991. 
>
>Regards
>
>Victor Goretsky
>
>

Dear Victor,

"I was lucky enough..."
       
This means that if you were not provided to have enough KI in you emergency
kit it will be difficult to you to be supplied? -- How many among the
800,000 "liquidators" were not as in your case?!!

By the way, "liquidator"  seems to me the most disagreeable  word to use on
Nuclear Communication.  

If there are Radsafers interested, below  a summary on the average dose to
"liquidators". For the complete document look at:  
http://www.nea.fr/html/rp/chernobyl/c04.html
Chernobyl Chapter IV DOSE ESTIMATES 

The liquidators 

Most of the liquidators can be divided into two groups: 

(1) the people who were working at the Chernobyl power station at the time
of the accident viz. the staff of the station and the firemen and people who
went to the aid of the victims. They number a few hundred persons; 

and (2) the workers, estimated to amount up to 800,000, who were active in
1986-1990 at the power  station or in the zone surrounding it for the
decontamination, sarcophagus construction and other recovery operations. 


The second group of liquidators consists of the large number of adults who
were recruited to assist in the clean-up operations. They worked at the
site, in towns, forests and agricultural areas to make them fit to work and
live in. Several hundreds of thousands of individuals participated in this
work. Initially, 50 per cent of those workers came from the Soviet armed
forces, the other half including personnel of civil organisations, the
security service, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and other organisations.
The total number of liquidators has yet to be
determined accurately, since only some of the data from some of those
organisations have been collected so far in the national registries of
Belarus, Russia, Ukraine and other republics of the former Soviet Union
(So95). Also, it has been suggested that, because of the social and economic
advantages associated with being designated a liquidator, many persons have
contrived latterly to have their names added to the list. 

There are only fragmented data on the doses received by the liquidators.
Attempts to establish a dosimetric service were inadequate until the middle
of June of 1986; until then, doses were estimated from area radiation
measurements. The liquidators were initially subjected to a radiation dose
limit for one year of 250 mSv. In 1987 this limit was reduced to 100 mSv and
in 1988 to 50 mSv (Ba93). The registry data show that the average recorded
doses decreased from year to year, being about 170 mSv in 1986, 130 mSv in
1987, 30 mSv in 1988 and 15 mSv in 1989 (Se95a). It is, however, difficult
to assess the validity of the results as they have been reported. 

It is interesting to note that a small special group of 15 scientists who
have worked periodically inside the sarcophagus for a number of years have
estimated accumulated whole-body doses in the range 0.5 to 13 Gy (Se95a).
While no deterministic effects have been noted to date, this group may well
show radiation health effects in the future. 

In summary, a large number of people received substantial doses as a result
of the
Chernobyl accident: 

     Liquidators - Hundreds of thousands of workers, estimated to amount up to
     800,000, were involved in clean-up operations. The most exposed, with
doses of
     several grays, were the workers involved immediately after the
beginning of        the accident and the scientists who have performed
special tasks in the            sarcophagus.
     The average doses to liquidators are reported to have ranged between
170 mSv
     in 1986 and 15 mSv in 1989. 

 J.J. Rozental <josrozen@netmedia.net.il>
Israel