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THE OREGON IAN RICHLAND, Wash. - An infant who lived ,! near Hanford Nuclear Reservation in 1945 could \ have received a radiation dose to the thyroid wed permissible today, according to prellminary flgures presented Monday to a Centers 1 for Disease Control panel of experts. 1 Prepared by Washington state radiation con-. trol of€icials, the calculations suggest that an infant who lived in Pasco could have received 2,300 rems of radiation to the thyroid from Standards widely in use for the last 20 years place the maximum permissible dose for a member of the public at only 1% rems per year. , The Washington Omce of Radiation Pfotec- ’ I tion report, covering 1 ~ 5 6 ,carried many qual- I “It should be emphasized that this bapre dals wrote. “Given the lack of historical data and the relatively primitive technology of environmental measurement systeprs at that t h e , the results can only be row@ approximaThe omcialb noted many lingering uncertainties, said they would welcome peer review of their work and‘said the actual doses probably were within a ,statistically acceptable range of 10 tlmes higher or lower than the 2.300-rem That figure represents the maximum dose calculated for a hypothetical Pasco infant in 1945 who drank nothing but the most contaminated locally prod e entire The assessments were prepared as a begin-, ning for discussions thls week by the Centers ; for Disease Control Hanford Health Effects Panel, which is considering whether emissions ’ from the Southeastern Washington nuclear , complex have contributed to cancers or other health problems in the region. The data on which the calculations were based came Dom more than 19,OOO pages of documents on many of the Hanford releases and on measurements of Nii-Zither nuclear complex in the United. States has reported releases of such magnitude. Allen W. Conklin, a Washington radiation office health physicist, said projected doses are corre- “It’s not surprising, given the amount of iddine that was released,” he said. Scientists will have to do additional calculations, based on the estimated doses, to project how many extra thyroid cancers or other health effects could be expected to occur in the populaI tion, Conklin said. Hanford‘s annual releases of iodine 31 today amount to less than one curie. A curie a measure of how much radioactive material is present. Iodine 131,a radioactive gas, can enter humans primarily through ingestion of contaminated foodstuffsand milk.The substance moves I into the thyroid, where it can kill cells or trigger T T h e thyhid regulates the rate at which &e body uses energy. Because a baby’s thyroid is one-tenth the size of an adult’s, a n equal I amount of iodine pl has a greater effect on chil-’ dren. Children’s’doses also would be greater because they drink more milk than adults. Health problems can include an underactive thyroid, a condition that can cause mental Thyroid cancer is rarely fatal, and any health’ effects from the 1945 releases should largely have revealed themselves within 20 to 30 years after exposure, according to state and federal Among other preliminary assessments, the - A hypothetical Richland infant who drank nothing but the most contaminated milk throughout 1945 could have received 1,800 rems to the thyroid and a Spokane infant, 256 rems. A Richland adult in 1945 could have received a , thyroid dose of about 370 rems, compared to 480 for an adult in Pasco and 50 for an adult in SpoColumbia River peaked, the maximum calculated dose to the entire body from mostly external I radiation sources - including fallout from weawns testing elsewhere, natural background ’ retardation in babies. ‘ Washington report said; radioactivity in air,soil, water and food. radiation andHanford discharges - would The documents suggest that Hanford have been about 2 rems for a hypothetical memreleased into the air during its flrst decade ber of the public. The current xnaxhum wholeabout 530,000 curies of iodine 131. Of that body dose considered safe for the public is one amount, 340,OOO curies were discharged during half rem per year. 1945 in the push to produce the world’s flrst. However, that preliminary dose assessment itomicbombs. ’ was based upon environmental measurement . data taken with highly suspect instruments,