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FACT SHEET ON MANHATTAN ENGINEER DISTRICT (MED) PLUTONIUM EXCRETION STUDIES Purpose of Study : To determine excretion rate for plutonium in man. 2)Accurate information needed on retention and excretion of internal plutonium for setting safety criteria. 3) Animal experiments produced confli c ting data which could not be extrapolated to man. Protocol : Selected hospitalized patients injected with various amounts of soluble plutonium. Body excretions collected, measured and recorded for plutonium d is - charge for several weeks after injection. in January,1947. One patient injected after that, ither e : MED Hospital in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. (1) Strong Memorial Hospital of the University of Bill in as Hospital of the University of Chicago, University Hospital of the University of California, San Francisco ,-C ali for nia. (3) The three university hospitals were associated with MED contractor laboratories and some staff members held joint appointments at the hospital and the MED
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Selection Criteria : By combination of age and health with a life expectancy from an existing patients involve3'%%?e eia g nosed as having some disease which would be fatal within a shorter period.Deviation from these criteria occurred.In one case, the diagnosis later proved to be Survival Time after Injections : Amounts of PU Injected : All deaths in first three years related to diagnosed existing illness.Later deaths unrelated to plutonium exposure (pneumonia and heart disease). no evidence fo suggest that the plutonium injection influenced the course of the By current standards for a body burden (permissible amount of plutonium in Scientific References to Study : Passing references to this study have been made in the scientific literature from time t~ time. written between 1946 and 1950 by people associated with the Several reports on the study were Many remained classified until about1969 - 1971.
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Several unclassified reports were published over the years. plutonium : in Industrial Medicine on the Plutonium Project J.S.Robertson and S.H. Cohn: Evaluation of plutonium exposures in man: Health Phys. 10:373-389 (1964). The definitive discussion of the study was in a chapter by Dr.Patricia Durbin entitled "Plutonium i n Nan: A New Look atthe Old Data," which was included in the book Radio bio lo o f Plutonium published in1972 by theJ. IV. Pres s4o University of Utah. Recent Studies of Surviving Patients : I n 1972 Dr.Patricia Durbin, who had accumulated data on study for book chapter,explored possibility of following up living In1973Dr. Durbin transferred information and records to Argonne National Laboratory. CHR arranged for follow up study of three of the four living patients and for exhumation ofthe body o f two deceased patients. In1974 two papers on follow up were prepared for International Congress of Radiation Research meeting in Seattle.