Re: Toothy Fairy

[Franz Schoenhofer <schoenho@via.at>]

At 14:00 11.03.1999 -0600, you wrote:
>Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the original intent of the "Tooth
>Fairy" project, two plus years ago (I'm not sure when it started - I
>thought 1996 time frame), was to determine the extent of Sr-90 fall-out
>from Chernobyl.  The project included collecting children's teeth in the US
>as well as all over Europe.
>

With regard to Europe Sr-90 need not be determined in children's teeth,
because there is a large amount of direct data from precipitation and
aerosols available and indirect contamination data from soil contamination,
milk. In fairly close areas like Western Europe the input of Sr-90 by
fallout to soil and milk etc. was approximately of the same magnitude as
the Sr-90 which was still present from the atmospheric weapons tests. This
additional Chernobyl-Sr-90 was relatively quickly washed off or strongly
bound by soil and therefore not available for plant uptake. I doubt that in
the USA really an additional input of Sr-90 from Chernobyl could be
observed (except perhaps very small amounts in precipitation or in
aerosols) and I am sure that measurements from surveillance networks in the
USA are available. There exists also a global network on precipitation
sampling, but I do not have the data. (Perhaps RADSAFERs could comment on
this?) I also doubt from our experience that Sr-90 in teeth can serve as a
quantitative measure for Sr-90 fallout. I have in a previous comment
already mentioned the problem of establishing a background Sr-90 value for
teeth. For soil, precipitation, milk etc.  pre-Chernobyl backgrounds -
which vary a lot depending on the area of origin - are well known.

Franz


Franz Schoenhofer
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Vienna
Austria
Tel.: +43-1-495 53 08
Fax.: same number
mobile phone: +43-664-338 0 333
e-mail: schoenho@via.at

Office:
Hofrat Dr. Franz Schönhofer
Federal Institute for Food Control and Research
Department of Radiochemistry
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A-1095 Vienna
Austria
Tel.: +43-1-40 490 27820
e-mail: schoenhofer@baluf.via.at
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