Re: Fallout blamed for thyroid cancer -Reply -Reply

[Andy Hull <hull@mail.sep.bnl.gov>]

Charles,
I tend to agree from the back of the envelope calculations I've seen that
any occurrence of thyroid cancer attributable to Nevada originated fallout
will be undetectable. However, on the basis of downwind occurrence of
thyroid cancers in the very young (especially in Belarus) at the time of
the Chernobyl accident, it appears that the published risk factor(s) lead
to significant underestimates among this population.  If corresponding
populations in the Nevada downwinders can be identified,  any study should
focus on them.
Andy

At 07:34 AM 9/17/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Michael,
>
>I have not seen the full report but I would advise against beiing too
cynical.  I made
>what I considered to be reasonable assumptions about the radioiodine
released to
>the atmosphere and the resulting doses.  Then, using the BEIR-V risk factors,
>calculated the number of thyroid cancers.  My results were in the range
offered by
>folk from the Institute of Medicine.
>
>A lot of I-131 was released, about 3 E 10 curies, but much of it was
injected into the
>stratosphere and the distribution in the troposphere was non-uniform and
>un-measured.  The principal pathway to people was via milk, etc., so any dose
>calculation is highly uncertain.  The risk factors also are highly
uncertain so I believe
>the published estimate underestimates the range of uncertainty.  Even the
upper
>value, about a 25 percent increase in thyroid cancer over the next 50
years would
>not be detectable, so we may never now.  Still, the guess does not seem as
>unrealistic as one might suppose.
>
>Charlie Willis
>caw@nrc.gov
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