Fwd: Results of DNA damage Tests, JCO criticality accident

["Michael C. Baker" <mcbaker@lanl.gov>]

FYI...Mike...mcbaker@lanl.gov


>Entire article quoted from November 10th Daily Yomiuri:
>
>              Tests indicate DNA damage to 8 victims of
>              JCO accident
>
>              Yomiuri Shimbun
>
>              CHIBA -- Eight out of 150 people who underwent tests
>              because they were situated within 350 meters of the Sept.
>              30 criticality accident in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture,
>              are believed to have suffered damage to their DNA.
>
>              Medical specialists made the assessment after it was
>              discovered that urine samples from the eight people
>              contained abnormally high levels of a substance that
>              indicates DNA damage.
>
>              The DNA-damage tests on the urine of 27 workers at the
>              uranium-reconversion plant of Tokyo-based JCO Co. and
>              123 residents of the surrounding area were conducted by
>              the St. Marianna University School of Medicine at the
>              request of the Ibaraki prefectural government.
>
>              It was revealed that eight of the 150 people, none of
>              whom gave their consent for DNA tests, had delivered up
>              to twice the normal concentration of the substance in their
>              urine.
>
>              A prefectural official said, however, that the correlation
>              between the results of the test and irradiation was not
>              confirmed because such results can also be obtained from
>              tests on cigarette smokers.
>
>              Radiation dosages assessed
>
>              CHIBA--The National Institute of Radiological Sciences
>              in Chiba has begun testing the radiation dosages received
>              by 43 people who were suspected or confirmed to have
>              been irradiated during the Sept. 30 nuclear accident in
>              Tokaimura, it was learned Monday.
>
>              The institute's officials and other experts said dosage
>              levels can be estimated by checking the ratio of
>              abnormally shaped blood chromosomes to normal ones
>              because partial chromosome aberration occurs when a
>              person is exposed to more than 250 millisieverts of
>              radiation.

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