Re: Potassium Iodide -Reply

[Victor Goretsky <goretsky@ncx.com>]

Dear J.J.

You are absolutely right! " I was lucky enough" to have this magic pill
in my packet. I believe that KI should be easy accessible to everyone
under similar circumstance

Regards, Victor   

J. J. Rozental wrote:
> 
> 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