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[cdn-nucl-l] Plutonium in Los Alamos workers FW: Another reply to Deseret Newsin Utah
The HPS paper indicated lower incidence of cancer and lower mortality 50
years after quite high doses of plutonium.
> ----------
> From: Philip A Anderson[SMTP:PANDERSO@inel.gov]
> Reply To: Ans-pie
> Sent: Monday, September 13, 1999 10:43 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ans-pie
> Subject: Another reply to Deseret News in Utah
>
> I also submitted a letter (below) to the editor of the Deseret News in
> Salt Lake
> City.
>
> Phil Anderson
>
>
> Subject: Feedback: letter by Volney Wallace
>
> The recent letter (Sept. 7) from Volney Wallace was refreshing in that it
> DID
> NOT perpetuate the popular but technically incorrect belief that plutonium
> is
> "the most toxic substance known to man." The late Dr. Glenn Seaborg, who
> discovered and first isolated plutonium, called this view "nonsense of
> course."
>
> Twenty-six white males who worked on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos
> during the early 1940s' were exposed to significant amounts of plutonium
> in
> the form of plutonium metal and its oxides. Now, 55 years later, the
> majority of them are still alive and in normal health for men of their
> ages.
> Their detailed health histories have been published by the Health Physics
> Society. Below is a quotation from the closing paragraph of a peer
> reviewed
> paper by George Voelz, et al., "FIFTY YEARS OF PLUTONIUM EXPOSURE TO THE
> MANHATTAN PROJECT PLUTONIUM WORKERS: AN UPDATE," Health Physics, Vol 73,
> No.
> 4, p. 619, October 1997.
> "The data on these 26 plutonium exposed workers have consistently
> indicated over the 50-y follow-up period that the mortality rates for all
> causes of death and for all cancers are not elevated compared with that of
> U.S. white males and unexposed Los Alamos workers with comparable hire
> dates.
> This finding differs from some popular misperceptions that large health
> risks occur with any exposure to plutonium."
>
> Related information is available on the Internet from Los Alamos
> Science
> at http://www.lanl.gov/external/science/lascience/
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Philip A. Anderson, Executive Director
> Idaho Academy of Science
> 909 Lucille Ave.
> Pocatello, ID 83201-2542
> (208) 234-7001, residence
> (208) 526-3395, office
>
>