Letter to P S Henshaw, Subject: Radiation and Human Spermatogenesis

Page 1

Medical Research Branch Division of Biology and Medicine First I would like to express my appreciation for the privilege of having been able to participate in the review of the Seattle program on Radiation and Human Spermatogenesis. also irery informative in relationship to some of the areas of work In which I found it not only stimulating but I would like to pass on a few comments, some of which I brought up during the course of the discussions. A few were also raised by other participants but I mention them again because of their coincidence with my ' o m thoughts on the matter. - As I indicated,I think that the double program isnot only an unusual one but offers a rare opportunity t o make studies of certain biological effects on human beings under controllable conditions. As you know the great bulk of our radiation protection philosophies are extrapolated from animal experience and wherever it i s possible to tie this encouraged and supported. experience is t h e one involving the radium exposure cases and while there is much material t o work with it cannot exactly be regarded as controllable. .across to h-n experience, I believe, that such a program should be strongly "he only other program dealing,directly with human Because of the uniqueness of this experiment, including the experimental material avail able, Ifeel-_that-o_oppor t u n it y shou&d.be-wezLocdkgd for*---- getting _t_e-maximump ossi ble amount of Information out of it. might_even go so far as to perform some experiments which are-nit strictly that any additional studies might require additional staff as well as finanexceeded but I think every effort should be made t o study the overall possibili ties and work up t o whatever the optimum may appear to be. should also bear I n mind the possibility ' .that at some time some "do-gooder" organization may suddenly realize that w e are doing radiation experiments on There may be some optimum level which cannot readily be

Page 2

prisoners and cause such a furor as t o bring about a political decision to stop the work. the work, to pay a good deal of attention to the public relations aspects. This incidentally, makes it highly important in reporting be a really measurable depression of the sperm count a t such low radiation doses as indicated. and-leads one to ask what the effects - might be if-_the exposures were carried This in itself is, of course, a very important finding Because the experimental doses cover a range from a few to as much as 600 rad, I think it i s important t o consider the possibility that there may be long range delayed somatic effects of some kind other than just the made t o keep track of the exposees-as-long as possible. Cf-co6peration-from the prisoners,in case they are paroled, one might have to in still in them that the research workers are interested in the science and are not playing cops i n order t o keep track of the whereabouts of the has already developed between the scientists and the prisoners. This would be essentially a carrying on of the excellent rapport that As nearly as I could tell from the presentations, the dosimetry both w i t h regard to technique and accuracy appears t o be adequate and is being carried out in good hands. An accuracy of * 5% was quoted and in view of the other inherent uncertainties in the experiment a t the present time this is quite satisfactory. It i s possible that there might.be some relaxation as t o accuracy i f it introduces special problems butif the present limits can be lived with they should by all means be retained. While I do not feel highly qualified in the field I had a slightly uneasy feeling about the overall experimental design of their programs. (I have noted in other AEC program reviews that there i s recognized need for such statisticians and they are not easy t o come by). that one should start looking right away because there may be a substantial delay in finding the right person. I t suddenly occurs tome that aDr, Wm. J. +Youden, who used to beat the NBS and before that a t the Boyce Thompson Institute, might be a useful person to consult on this. This might indicate

Page 3

'used by the two groups. completely tothe testis with a negligible amount of exposure to any part of the near by body system. In the other it would appear that there must of necessity be some more exposure toat least small portions of the body In the one case the radiation is limited fairly I am sorry that my background is such that I could not have a better comprehension of some of the bio-medical parts of the program. The points that I have mentioned above are among those that seemed of special importance t o me. As I indicated during one of the discussions I see important implicat ions in this program in relation to our radiation protection philosophy and such as post attack recovery inthe event of nuclear warfare, flight in outer space, and for that matter, flight in the supersonic transports which are now being considered for the next decade. In addition it has implications with regard to such other situations, Again my many thanks for the invitation to attend this review and I hope you will convey this to the investigators should you be communicating