A REVIEW OF THE DOSE RECONSTRUCTION PROGRAM OF THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCTION AGENCY
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NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.
This study was supported by contract DTRA01-01-C-0012 between the National Academy of Sciences and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations or agencies that provided support for the project.
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COVER PHOTO. Soldiers watching atomic-bomb detonation at Yucca Flat, Nevada. This photo is Shot DOG in which a 21.5-kiloton device was dropped from a B-50 bomber in the BUSTER-JANGLE series of tests on November 1, 1951. This photo was also published in the November 12, 1951, issue of Life Magazine.
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COMMITTEE TO REVIEW THE DOSE RECONSTRUCTION PROGRAM OF THE DEFENSE THREAT REDUCTION AGENCY (DTRA)
JOHN E. TILL (Chairman), President,
Risk Assessment Corporation, Neeses, SC
HAROLD L. BECK,
Environmental Measurements Laboratory (ret.), New York, NY
WILLIAM J. BRADY,
Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Co., Inc. (ret.), Las Vegas, NV
THOMAS F. GESELL,
Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID
DAVID G. HOEL,
Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC
ERIC E. KEARSLEY (Member until 12/10/2001),
Silver Spring, MD
DAVID C. KOCHER,
SENES Oak Ridge Inc., Oak Ridge, TN
JONATHAN D. MORENO,
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
CLARICE R. WEINBERG,
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Research Triangle Park, NC
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL STAFF
EVAN B. DOUPLE, Director,
Board on Radiation Effects Research
ISAF AL-NABULSI, Study Director
DIANNE STARE, Research Assistant
DORIS E. TAYLOR, Staff Assistant
NORMAN GROSSBLATT, Senior Editor
SPONSOR’S PROJECT OFFICER
D. MICHAEL SCHAEFFER,
Defense Threat Reduction Agency
BOARD ON RADIATION EFFECTS RESEARCH
S. JAMES ADELSTEIN (Chairman),
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
R. J. MICHAEL FRY (chairman until 6/30/02),
Indianapolis, IN
JOEL S. BEDFORD,
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO
VALERIE BERAL,
University of Oxford, United Kingdom
JAMES E. CLEAVER,
UCSF Cancer Center, San Francisco, CA
SARAH S. DONALDSON,
Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford, CA
SHARON L. DUNWOODY,
University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
EDWARD R. EPP, Professor Emeritus,
Harvard University, Boston, MA
HELEN H. EVANS (member until 6/30/02),
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH
DANIEL KREWSKI,
University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
WILLIAM F. MORGAN,
University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD
THEODORE L. PHILLIPS,
University of California, San Francisco, CA
FRANKLYN G. PRENDERGAST,
Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, Rochester, MN
ANDREW M. SESSLER,
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA
DANIEL O. STRAM,
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
PAUL L. ZEIMER,
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL STAFF
EVAN B. DOUPLE, Director,
Board on Radiation Effects Research
ISAF AL-NABULSI, Senior Program Officer
RICK JOSTES, Senior Program Officer
CATHERINE S. BERKLEY, Administrative Associate
TAJUANA CLAYTON, Project Assistant
BENJAMIN HAMLIN, Research Assistant (until 12/13/02)
DIANNE STARE, Research Assistant
DORIS E. TAYLOR, Staff Assistant
A Note on the Units of Measurement Used in this Report
It has been the custom of the Board on Radiation Effects Research (BRER) to use the International System of Units (SI) in its reports. In this report, however, exceptions are made in presenting data on radiation exposure, radiation dose, and activity of radionuclides. In all such cases, traditional non-SI units and their special names are used. Thus, exposure in air is given in roentgen (R), absorbed dose in rad, equivalent dose in body organs or tissues in rem,1 and activity of radionuclides in curies (Ci). Decimal submultiples of the units also are used. For example, equivalent dose may be given in millirem (mrem), or one thousandth (10−3) of a rem, and activity may be given in microcuries, or one millionth of a curie (μCi), or in nanocuries, or one billionth of a curie (nCi). The traditional units are used in this report because they have been used exclusively in all dose reconstructions for atomic veterans and in other documents of the dose reconstruction program and therefore are the units with which veterans are familiar.
The relationships between the units used in this report and the corresponding SI units and special names are given in the table below.
Quantity |
Previous unit |
SI unit |
Special name of SI unit |
Conversion |
Exposure |
roentgen (R) |
coulomb per kilogram (C kg−1) |
|
1 R = 2.58 × 10−4 C kg−1 |
Absorbed dose |
rad |
joule per kilogram (J kg−1) |
gray (Gy) |
1 rad = 0.01 Gy |
Equivalent dose |
rem |
joule per kilogram (J kg−1) |
sievert (Sv) |
1 rem = 0.01 Sv |
Activity |
curie (Ci) |
disintegration per second (s−1) |
becquerel (Bq) |
1 Ci = 3.7 × 1010 Bq |
Preface
From 1945 through 1962, the US atmospheric nuclear weapons testing program involved hundreds of thousands of military and civilian personnel, and some of them were exposed to ionizing radiation. Veterans’ groups have since been concerned that their members’ health was affected by radiation exposure associated with participation in nuclear tests and have pressured Congress for disability compensation. Several pieces of legislation have been passed to compensate both military and civilian personnel for such health effects. Veterans’ concerns about the accuracy of reconstructed doses prompted Congress to have the General Accounting Office (GAO) review the dose reconstruction program used to estimate exposure. The GAO study concluded that dose reconstruction is a valid method of estimating radiation dose and could be used as the basis of compensation. It also recommended an independent review of the dose reconstruction program. The result of that recommendation was a congressional mandate that the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), a part of the Department of Defense, ask the National Research Council to conduct an independent review of the dose reconstruction program. In response to that request, the National Research Council established the Committee to Review the Dose Reconstruction Program of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency in the Board on Radiation Effects Research (BRER).
The committee randomly selected sample records of doses that had been reconstructed by DTRA and carefully evaluated them. The committee’s report describes its findings and provides responses to many of the questions that have been raised by the veterans.
Throughout the study, the committee’s work was greatly aided by the efforts of D. Michael Schaeffer of DTRA, the DTRA contractor team, Bradley Flohr and Neil Otchin of the Department of Veterans Affairs, and Department staff; we thank them for providing valuable historical insights for the committee’s study and providing feedback and materials for additional review. The committee and the BRER staff are grateful for the information provided by invited speakers who generously contributed their time and participated in the committee’s information-gathering meetings: D. Michael Schaeffer, Steve Powell, W. Jeffrey Klemm, Julie Fisher, Cindy Bascetta, Neil Otchin, Bradley Flohr, Pat Broudy, Richard Conant, Andy Nelson, Barry Pass, and Alex Romanyukha. The committee thanks Tony E. Carter and Sandy Ford for redacting case files.
The committee is especially grateful for the assistance provided by “atomic veterans” throughout the course of its work. Veterans provided records, explained their concerns, and assisted us in understanding the conditions surrounding the nuclear-weapon tests. The committee and the BRER staff are appreciative of the information, feedback, and background materials for review provided by Gilbert Acciardo, James Avans, James Bradley, Robert Brenner, Frank Bushey, Thomas Caffarello, Boley Caldwell III, Sarah Comley, Joseph Ceonzo, Fred Clapp, Fred Clark, daughterrad (e-mail), William Duffy, Theodore Dvorak, Frank Fancieullo, William Fish, Walter Furbee, Richard Gilson, Glen Howard, Thomas Hughes, Jennifer Jones, Martin Kinney, Harold Kolb, David Lloyd, John Locke, Michael Lynch, James McDonald, Jack Nelson, James Robert Peden, Howard Pettet, Howard Pierson, Bernard Reynolds, Claude Richard, Keith Schwenk, James Warren Scott, Rodney Seidler, Delinda Sterling, R. Stockwell, Gerald Stone, Richard Stoyle, Herb Stradley, strawbry (e-mail), Arthur Templin, James Tokar, Paul Tutas, Lawrence Wagner, and Sidney Wolfeld. We hope that we have responded usefully to the veterans’ questions about dose reconstruction and the claims process. We also hope that our work will help to generate changes in the dose reconstruction program that will make it more effective.
Finally, the committee thanks the National Research Council staff who worked directly with us, especially Study Director Isaf Al-Nabulsi for keeping the committee focused and assisting in the writing and preparation of our report. Dr. Al-Nabulsi was well assisted in the administration of the committee’s work by Dianne Stare and Doris Taylor.
John E. Till
Chairman, Committee to Review the Dose Reconstruction Program of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency
Acknowledgments
This report has been reviewed in draft form by persons chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise in accordance with procedures approved by the National Research Council’s Report Review Committee. The purposes of this review are to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making the published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards of objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following for their participation in the review of this report:
Harry M. Cullings, Hiroshima, Japan
Edward R. Epp, Weston, MA
Naomi H. Harley, New York, NY
Milton Levenson, Menlo Park, CA
Francis X. Masse, Middleton, MA
Bruce A. Napier, Richland, WA
Andrew M. Sessler, Berkeley, CA
Although the reviewers listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations, nor did they see the final draft of the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by Richard B. Setlow, Brookhaven National Laboratory (Senior Biophysicist) and Maureen M. Henderson, University of Washington (Professor Emeritus). Appointed by the National Research Council, they were