Radiation Estimates Delayed Hanford Won’t Have Individual Dosage Figures Until Summer

It will be at least a year before individuals will be able to find out how much radiation they received from living downwind of the Hanford nuclear reservation, panel members said.

Calculations needed to plot the individual radiation dosages are proving to be complex, delaying the work originally expected to be finished sometime this year, panelists said Wednesday.

The individual dosage figures now likely won’t be available before late next summer, the panel was told.

Calculations on general exposures were completed and published in 1994.

The study began in 1988 and scientists hope to be able to provide estimated radiation doses for the estimated 2 million people who lived downwind of Hanford from the 1940s to the 1970s.

Short-lived radioactive iodine, which can cause thyroid cancer, spewed into the air as a byproduct of the chemical process used at Hanford to extract plutonium from spent reactor fuel rods.

More than 20,000 people have filed lawsuits contending their health was damaged by accidental and intentional radiation releases from Hanford plants where nuclear bomb materials were made.

The panel assessing individual doses represents state health agencies of Washington, Oregon and Idaho, the federal Centers for Disease Control and members of the former Hanford Dose Reconstruction Project.

The panel is trying to finish work done by the Dose Reconstruction Project, which finished its technical work late in 1995.

The work looks at radiation released into the air, rivers and food chains from Hanford from 1943 to the early 1970s.

Scientists say people were exposed to Hanford radiation mainly through the food they ate. For instance, people were exposed when they drank milk from cows that ate grass contaminated by airborne radioactive particles.

To determine doses to individuals, scientists must consider wind patterns, dairy and pasture locations, eating and drinking habits, radiation release dates and other factors.

To determine individual doses, downwinders likely will be asked by state health agencies to fill out questionnaires. That information then would be used to calculate the estimated radiation dose each person received.

Still to be determined is whether exposure to radiation can be linked to health problems.

The individual dose estimates will be used in a parallel study by Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center to determine whether radioactive iodine can be linked to thyroid cancers in residents living downwind of Hanford.

The center recently finished 3,448 medical exams, said Mark Saporito, a systems analyst and programmer for the center.

Between now and then, the center will compute the dosages for each of the 3,448 people, analyze the blood and other tests and complete the diagnoses on their health, Saporito said.

The cancer center’s draft report is expected to be done by fall 1998.

Meanwhile, a second dose estimate project is proceeding for nine American Indian tribes, panel members were told.

The CDC has computed overall estimates for each tribe and now is working on calculating dosages for individual tribal members, said Charles Miller, chief of the CDC’s environmental dosimetry section.