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BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LABORATORY ASSOCIATED UNIVERSITIES. INC.. UPTON. L.I.. N.Y. 11973 Administration BOX No. 5 b F L* I Dr. Conard and I have discussed the urine plutonium problem a t length, and have arrived at several courses of action which will hopefully shed more light on it. The fall medical survey (- September 19 t o October 3)will afford us several opportunities to test the "regional theory", i.e.that urine Pu levels are generally higher in the tropical Pacific than a t temperate latitudes. The survey has scheduled stops at Wotje, Ailuk, Uti rik, Rongelap and Bikini. We ex- . pec t to collect as many bioassay and rel event environmental samples as possible at these atolls ; and additional urine samples will be collected at Ebeye and Majuro. We are also investigating the p ossi - bil it y of collecting bioassay specimens from "long-term" residents at Kio aja le in and Enewetak ( ? ) I am hoping that we can obtain separate specimens from 1 7 year old and younger Marshallese, and from Peace Corps volunteers with notation of the duration of their res i - dence. Additional " local " controls from Brookhaven National Laboratory employees will be analyzed and samples will be collected from several BNL'employees who spent substantial amounts of time in the northern Maj shall s during the testing days. Special efforts will be taken to minimize cross contamination of urine samples with pu contaminated soil, and the samples will be Milli pore filtered before radiochemical analy- ' . Vic Nelson will be making this trip to gather additional data on ,the geographical distribution of radio nuclides from the testing programs. We expect to place special emphasis on analyses for transuranic suspended and re deposited soil at Bikini to support our preliminary finding that plutonium bearing particulates are fraction a ted from inert materials and are selectively left behind when soil is resuspended.
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As a result of some recent discussions with Ed Wrenn (NYU), Iam convinced that we should look for americium i n Marshallese whole body coun Making inferences zbout Pu from Am data can be pretty tenuous, but 5ziAm uptake data would be useful in establishing conservative upper limits on Pu body burdens. Besides that,the present state of the art allows us to see a small fraction of a maximum permi ssl ble body burden for 241Am, and the incremental cost of adding this specific analysis t o the present whole body counting program should be small ; Iam strongly encouraging the addition of Ed Wrenn's resources to the whole body counting program tentatively scheduled for next spring.I hope to arrange a meeting soon between Ed Wrenn, Stan Colin, Rob Conard, and myself todis - CUSS the details.If additional costs are identified beyond our budgets, I may have to talk to you about the possibility of additional funding from BER o r OS. Asa follow up t o our discussion about the Uti rik thyroid cancer cases,I spoke with Bob Conard about the dose estimates. He substantiated our surmise that the estimates were based on rather tenuous and late (post-exposure) urine analyses, and external exposure rate ' measurements. Evaluations o f environmental levels of 1291may prove helpful in shedding more light on thyroid dose estimates (at least in establishing a dose retio between Rongelap and Uti rik). However, preliminary attempts at activation analysis by the BNL Chemistry department have indicated a total soil io eine level of - 10 ppml$$ samples from Rongelap. This is near the limit of de - tec tion, and the I level is yet to be esta pli shed. We will continue t o look into this approach, however , because larger samples and preliminary . chemical separation of iodine may increase the sensitivity of the techni5ue. The following approximate schedule may slipa week depending on inter - face requirements with Batel le ' s marine sediments program at Bikini. Iwill keep you appraised of any new developments. Best re gards,