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The dragon's tail: Radiation safety in the Manhattan Project

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Abstract

The book's contents are: Introduction: radiation safety in World War II. Foundations of Manhattan Project radiation safety. Role of the Chicago Health Division. Radiation safety at Los Alamos, Trinity. From Japan to Bikini. Crossroads. Epilogue: continuity and change in radiation safety. Appendix: chronological index of radiation exposure standards. Index. The United States Department of Energy and the Energy Research and Development Administration financially supported this book which provides a historical account of radiological safety in nuclear weapons testing during World War II. The author relied on archival sources and the oral testimony of participants and eyewitnesses. He provides a bibliography with full citations.

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... Since the modem radiation protection philosophy was adopted, the use of ionizing radiation in medicine, industry and research, emphasis is given in limiting die detriment of radiation effects and limiting the risk of exposures for the sake of getting the benefits of these applications [1], Untrained workers, ill designed equipment, mistakes and unfortunate events can cause spills, airborne radioactivity and contamination, hi the past, contamination with radioactive substances was given less attention. The famous example of contamination of the young workers of a factory in New Jersey in early XX Century with radium paint is solely one [2][3]. Even in the middle seventies of last century, one of the authors witnessed extensive contamination with radium paint in a luminous dial clock factory. ...
... It was believed that these precautions were enough to avoid the 'skin burnings' that were considered for a long time the main hazard. However, the effects of theses exposures appear later and were severe [3]. ...
... The criterion was the potential radiological risks of the incorporated radionuclides by inhalation or by contact with the skin. [3,[5][6], ...
Article
Methods for characterization of solid, non-compactable radioactive wastes contaminated in the surface are developed aiming at estimating the waste radioisotopic inventory for regulatory compliance and operational purposes. The wastes of interest here are mainly composed of plastic, metallic, or other materials parts originated in the decommissioning and maintenance operations of nuclear facilities. One way of measuring surface contamination is the indirect method of wiping the contaminated surface and counting the wipe, a common method of detecting non-fixed contamination in the radiation protection routine. The wipe sampling is an important tool in controlling the quality of the workplace in nuclear and radioactive facilities. Although radioprotection regulations establish quantitative limits, the practice in the radiation protection routine is to use wipe sampling as a qualitative measurement. To produce useful quantitative results for inventorying radioactive wastes, a quantitative approach must be adopted. A previous paper presented by the authors in the last INAC Conference discussed alternative wipe materials and protocols. The method of wipe sampling underwent small changes since it started to be used but still is the object of study, as it is attested by many recent papers and patents on the subject. This article consists of a literature review. Results of a survey in the literature about wipe sampling techniques that can be applied to waste characterization are presented.
... While any accident response can be critiqued afterward for imperfect actions, the Chornobyl response had significant efforts made to limit the exposure of uninvolved civilians in the impacted countries. Trinity, lacking today's knowledge of the effects of radiation, was "born secret," in part to avoid liability for the government (Hacker 1987). Following the Trinity accident, despite planning efforts and preparation by the MED for large-scale evacuation, no protective actions were taken. ...
... Hacker's book The Dragon's Tail, Radiation Safety in the Manhattan Project 1942-1946, funded and reviewed by the US Department of Energy, notes that after Trinity, Oppenheimer held all of the Health Group records on Trinity in his office to prevent their inadvertent release and to safeguard the project against lawsuits (Hacker 1987). Those records, including logbooks used by health physicists during the accident phase of the Trinity Nuclear Test, were never located or released to CDC during the 10-y-long LAHDRA project. ...
Article
This paper discusses the various analyses of the Trinity Nuclear Test, including how they might apply to the issue of infant mortality. This paper was first drafted as a response to a letter by Rice, who commented on my earlier letter on that issue. My earlier letter commented on the National Cancer Institute’s 2020 series of papers in the October Issue of Health Physics on the impact of the Trinity Nuclear Test that was conducted on unoccupied government lands on 16 July 1945. The Journal editors requested that my response to Rice be edited and submitted as a paper to ensure adequate technical review and suggested that the article also add material summarizing the series of exchanges that were published in the Journal. This article suggests that significant differences exist between various summaries of the offsite impact of the Trinity Nuclear Test and offers that Trinity might be the largest nuclear accident in terms of the impact on uninvolved civilians who were downwind following the test. It suggests areas for further study to resolve these significant differences. It also asserts that until the estimated exposures of downwind residents are resolved and an appropriate study is made of infant deaths following the Trinity Nuclear Test, the issue of infant mortality remains an unanswered, 80-y-old question.
... Although‖the‖Cold‖War‖remained‖‚cold‛‖between‖the‖US‖and‖the‖Soviet‖Union,‖ the conflict claimed many casualties in proxy wars around the globe and among the populations of the two superpowers in their pursuit of nuclear supremacy (e.g., downwinders, atomic soldiers, uranium miners, and victims of plutonium experiments). From the early days of atomic science, the hazards of radioactivity were known (Hacker 1987). During the Manhattan Project, the urgency that dictated an intense work pace and the obsession with secrecy often collided with safety rules, which were defined as the work progressed. ...
... After all, it was customary for employers, including the nuclear labs, to distribute cigarettes to workers. Probably the most well-known early accidents at Los Alamos led to the deaths of Harry Daghlian in August 1945 andLouis Slotin in May 1946, both occurring while they were handling‖ the‖ ‚demon‖ core‛‖ and‖ ‚tickling‖ the‖ dragon's‖ tail‛‖ in‖ nuclear‖ lingo‖ (Wellerstein 2016;Hacker 1987). Those were spectacular, memorable deaths, but there have been countless other anonymous ones other the years, remembered by family members and surviving co-workers. ...
... Many of the experiments done at that time presented serious dangers. Hacker (1987) writes that ...
... (Hacker, 1987, p. 73) Although much work had been done on radiation safety before the war, standards and procedures were developed hazard by hazard and project by project. As new situations and hazards presented themselves, there were, literally, no generally set standards, procedures, or even an adequate realization of the degree of danger presented (Malenfont, 1996, Hacker, 1987. In retrospect, the experimental procedures of scientists at the time may seem reckless now, but considering the context of the time, it is not clear whether scientists like Slotin should, indeed, have known better. ...
Article
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It is a little known fact that the scientist who was a key figure in assembling the first “atomic” bomb ever to be exploded was a native Winnipegger, Louis Slotin. When Louis completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1936, he tried, unsuccessfully, to get a position with the National Research Council in Canada. Instead, Slotin moved to Chicago and ended up working in the famous Met Lab where the first sustained nuclear reaction was carried out. From there he was drafted into the crucial bomb-construction phase of the Manhattan Project and, amazingly, he was the lead assembler of the first atomic bomb.
... or. However, a report issued at the time blamed project management for being " negligent in failing to recognize the need for effective safety controls, requirements to ensure reproducibility, and the development and implementation of suitable procedures " (Malenfont, 1996, p. 2). Many of the experiments done at that time presented serious dangers. Hacker (1987) writes that [t]he reasons were largely psychological. Proper care precluded any danger at all; nothing could happen unless an assembly exceeded the critical amount. A long series of trouble-free tests could foster a degree of overconfidence. " Those of us who were old hands felt impervious to the invisible danger, " a member of the crit ...
... " (Hacker, 1987, p. 73) Although much work had been done on radiation safety before the war, standards and procedures were developed hazard by hazard and project by project. As new situations and hazards presented themselves, there were, literally, no generally set standards, procedures, or even an adequate realization of the degree of danger presented (Malenfont, 1996, Hacker, 1987). In retrospect, the experimental procedures of scientists at the time may seem reckless now, but considering the context of the time, it is not clear whether scientists like Slotin should, indeed, have known better. ...
Article
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Science educators are beginning to establish a theoretical and methodological foundation for constructing and using stories in science teaching. At the same time, it is not clear to what degree science stories that have recently been written adhere to the guidelines that are being proposed. The author has written a story about Louis Slotin, which deals with the beginnings of radiation protection, to serve as a case study. In this paper, the story is dissected and evaluated with the view to begin to establish a method of literary criticism for science stories. In addition, student responses to the story are investigated and interpreted.
... Contrary to the pattern expected if there was substantial positive confounding by internal radionuclide depositions of associations between external radiation dose and site-specific cancer mortality, the magnitude of the estimated ERR/Gy for lung cancer, for example, was larger in analyses restricted those with no known or suspected internal contamination by radionuclides than in our overall unrestricted analysis of INWORKS. In the early years of the nuclear industry, workers were recruited en masse into a new industry (51,52). Because large numbers of healthy males had been selected out of the workforce by WWII military conscription, there have been questions raised about differences in health-related selection between early and later hires (53, 54). ...
Article
A major update to the International Nuclear Workers Study was undertaken that allows us to report updated estimates of associations between radiation and site-specific solid cancer mortality. A cohort of 309,932 nuclear workers employed in France, the United Kingdom, and United States were monitored for external radiation exposure and associations with cancer mortality were quantified as the excess relative rate (ERR) per gray (Gy) using a maximum likelihood and a Markov chain Monte Carlo method (to stabilize estimates via a hierarchical regression). The analysis included 28,089 deaths due to solid cancer, the most common being lung, prostate, and colon cancer. Using maximum likelihood, positive estimates of ERR per Gy were obtained for stomach, colon, rectum, pancreas, peritoneum, larynx, lung, pleura/mesothelioma, bone and connective tissue, skin, prostate, testis, bladder, kidney, thyroid, and residual cancers; negative estimates of ERR per Gy were found cancers of oral cavity and pharynx, esophagus, and ovary. A hierarchical model stabilized site-specific estimates of association, including for lung (ERR per Gy=0.65; 95% credible interval [CrI]: 0.24, 1.07), prostate (ERR per Gy=0.44; 95% CrI: -0.06, 0.91), and colon cancer (ERR per Gy=0.53; 95% CrI: -0.07, 1.11). The results contribute evidence regarding associations between low dose radiation and cancer.
... THE term 'health physics' (physics applied to protection of health from radiation) was coined by Compton during the days when Enrico Fermi demonstrated the chain reaction for the first time in the Chicago Pile (CP1) reactor at the University of Chicago, USA 1 . In India, the rudimentary health physics activities were started in 1952 when S. D. Soman, working with the beta-ray spectroscopy group at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai was identified to provide radiation protection coverage and control radiation exposure to research workers handling radioactive sources. ...
... 74 Another essential contribution came from Frisch: the so-called Dragon's Tail, an experiment that helped determine the exact amount of enriched U235 needed for the U235 bomb. 75 This was of exceptional significance as it averted the need to field test the uranium bomb. 76 These individual inputs are telling, but as striking is that almost one-third of the long-term members of the British mission -Peierls, Bretschner, Frisch, Moon, Penney, and Plazcek -led research groups at Los Alamos. ...
Article
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When, in March 1940, two Jewish emigré physicists, Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls, composed a memorandum on the technical feasibility of an atomic weapon, few would have envisaged the significance of this six-page document. The technical blueprint for an atomic weapon, at the time assumed to be well beyond the realm of the possible, was to have a significant impact on the Anglo-American nuclear relationship, as it enabled British and American scientists to discuss at eye-level, the direction of nuclear weapons development, as it moved from theory to implementation. Significantly, Peierls and Frisch calculated the critical mass uranium and concluded that the amount of U235 required for a bomb was in the region of kilos rather than tons, as previously thought. The document amplified the British voice in the Anglo-American discussions about the development of nuclear weapons which eventually led to the Manhattan Project, the US-led development of the bombs that would be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the war in the Pacific. Yet, the official history of the Manhattan Project claimed that the British contribution to the successful development of the weapon was ‘in no sense vital’ and the ‘technical and engineering contribution … practically nil’. This paper discusses Britain’s co-operation and competition in the Anglo-American nuclear relationship in the light of scientific collaboration and rivalry during the Second World War.
... Before the first nuclear test explosion in 1945, physicists were aware of the potential problems of atmospheric fallout of fission products from a successful nuclear detonation and of dispersed plutonium should a nuclear explosion fail (Hacker 1987;Hoddeson et al. 1993). This led to, at least, rudimentary efforts to measure alpha, beta, and gamma activity in the near-and far-fields following the first nuclear test, Trinity, conducted on 16 July 1945 in New Mexico. ...
Article
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In recent years, the prospects that a nuclear device might be detonated due to a regional or global political conflict, by violation of present nuclear weapons test ban agreements, or due to an act of terrorism, has increased. Thus, the need exists for a well conceptualized, well described, and internally consistent methodology for dose estimation that takes full advantage of the experience gained over the last 70 y in both measurement technology and dose assessment methodology. Here, the models, rationale, and data needed for a detailed state-of-the-art dose assessment for exposure to radioactive fallout from nuclear detonations discussed in five companion papers are summarized. These five papers present methods and data for estimating radionuclide deposition of fallout radionuclides, internal and external dose from the deposited fallout, and discussion of the uncertainties in the assessed doses. In addition, this paper includes a brief discussion of secondary issues related to assessments of radiation dose from fallout. The intention of this work is to provide a usable and consistent methodology for both prospective and retrospective assessments of exposure from radioactive fallout from a nuclear detonation.
... Walker 2000. Zur Geschichte des Strahlenschutzes und der Regulierung von Strahlen auch : Boudia 2008;Boudia 2007;Lindell 2006Lindell [1999; Lindell 2004Lindell [1996; Caufield 1994Caufield [1989 ;Hacker 1994;Walker 1994;Walker 1992;Hacker 1987;Mazuzan/Walker 1984;Taylor 1979;Serwer 1976. 39 Vgl. ...
... Once at Trinity, the slug was dissolved into liquid form and pumped into a tube that was interwoven throughout the TNT. 28 Studying the dispersal of the radioactive material after the explosion would offer the scientists insight into the possible scale and danger of Trinity's fallout. ...
Preprint
The Trinity test of July 16, 1945 marked the scientific apex of the Manhattan Project. Often recognized as the symbolic birth of the nuclear age, Trinity's multifaceted legacy remains just as captivating and complex as it did 75 years ago. This paper examines why the test was necessary from a technical standpoint, shows how Los Alamos scientists planned the event, and explores the physical and emotional aftermaths of Trinity. The author also uses rarely accessed original records to reconstruct the story of Trinity's health hazards, as seen through the eyes of radiation technicians and medical doctors as events unfolded. Trinity was conducted as the Potsdam Conference began, weeks after the collapse of Nazi Germany. It was considered necessary to let President Harry S. Truman know whether the United States possessed a nuclear capability ahead of his negotiations with Joseph Stalin, the Soviet premier. The author examines the competing priorities that drove the timetable for the test: international politics, security and safety. Three weeks after Trinity, a gun-assembled enriched-uranium bomb called Little Boy was used against the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, Fat Man, a weaponized version of the imploding Trinity device, was dropped on Nagasaki. The author briefly examines these strikes and what impact they may have had on the Japanese surrender. The paper concludes by examining the legacy of the Trinity test 75 years into the age it helped usher in.
... 17 As the health hazards of radium became evident in the tragic suffering and deaths of watch dial painters in the 1920s, knowledge about the localization and biological effects of radioactive isotopes took on an urgent medical relevance. 18 Neither radium nor most of the heavy radioactive elements used in these early experiments were generally found in living organisms. Consequently, these studies didn ' t shed direct light on physiological processes. ...
Chapter
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Investigations of how the global Cold War shaped national scientific and technological practices in fields from biomedicine to rocket science. The Cold War period saw a dramatic expansion of state-funded science and technology research. Government and military patronage shaped Cold War technoscientific practices, imposing methods that were project oriented, team based, and subject to national-security restrictions. These changes affected not just the arms race and the space race but also research in agriculture, biomedicine, computer science, ecology, meteorology, and other fields. This volume examines science and technology in the context of the Cold War, considering whether the new institutions and institutional arrangements that emerged globally constrained technoscientific inquiry or offered greater opportunities for it. The contributors find that whatever the particular science, and whatever the political system in which that science was operating, the knowledge that was produced bore some relation to the goals of the nation-state. These goals varied from nation to nation; weapons research was emphasized in the United States and the Soviet Union, for example, but in France and China scientific independence and self-reliance dominated. The contributors also consider to what extent the changes to science and technology practices in this era were produced by the specific politics, anxieties, and aspirations of the Cold War. ContributorsElena Aronova, Erik M. Conway, Angela N. H. Creager, David Kaiser, John Krige, Naomi Oreskes, George Reisch, Sigrid Schmalzer, Sonja D. Schmid, Matthew Shindell, Asif A. Siddiqi, Zuoyue Wang, Benjamin Wilson
... As a consequence, the ICRP published a large number of technical documents that became respected guidelines for radiation protection throughout the world. In the United States of America, the field of radiation protection developed somewhat differently because of the experience accumulated in the Manhattan Project [1][2]. However, many American investigators in radiation protection have been giving their contribution to ICRP development since its inception. ...
Article
A fraction of a primary dose limit can be, in general, agreed upon as a dose related level to be adopted in decision-making processes. In the case of TENORM releases, fractions of primary dose levels for 226 Ra, 228 Ra, and 210 Po may be of particular importance to establish adopted levels and derived limits to guide decision making processes. Thus, for example, a registration level for 226 Ra could be adopted at the highest portion of the natural background variation. Above such level, intervention and remedial action levels could also be adopted. All those levels would be fractions of the primary level, but translated in terms of derived limits expressed in practical units. Derived limits would then be calculated by using environmental models. In such approach "critical groups" would have to be carefully defined and identified. In addition, the size of a critical group would be chosen to be used in environmental modeling. Site specific environmental models and parameters are desirable, though unavailable, or very difficult to obtain, in most cases. Thus, mathematical models and parameters of more generic nature are often used. A sensitive parametric analysis can make a ranking of the parameters used in a model, allowing one to choose how important each parameter will be for the model output. The paper will point out that when using the adopted levels and derived limits, as suggested above, the uncertainties and importance of the parameters entering an environmental model can make the difference for decision makers to take the right or wrong decision, as far as radiological protection is concerned.
... "Large amounts of radioactive material" were found on the lagoon bottom at Bikini (Berkhouse et al. 1984:159). Further study determined that some marine organisms can concentrate fission products by a factor of 100,000 times the background level in their environment (Hacker 1987cited in Weisgall 1994. Fission products were found in fish, clams, snails, oysters, corals, sponges, octopus, crabs, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, spiny lobsters, shrimp and algae in the lagoon. ...
Article
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This document considers human-sea turtle ecology in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) from the perspective of environmental anthropology and outlines the background and rationale for an upcoming project to be conducted by the authors and the College of the Marshall Islands. In particular, the project will examine the: 1. possible use of sea turtles as proxies of human health risks and hazards, 2. potential for sea turtle bone and tissue contaminant levels to back-calculate the initial amounts of toxi-cants introduced to the area, 3. feasibility of using chromosomal changes resulting from contamination to determine home ranges in areas impacted by nuclear activities, and 4. impact of environmental toxicants such as those related to war and weapons testing on the viability of the sea turtle population, its cultural significance, and its value as a continuing source of food for atoll populations. The project will also take into account how this cultural valuation can be used to contribute to a sea turtle monitoring programme and population baseline assessment for the RMI. Additionally, in keeping with the concept of je ilo bok, literally "write in the book", researchers will document traditional and contemporary Marshallese cultural, ecological and health knowledge regarding sea turtles, describe sea turtle "flows" through marine and human ecosystems (including markets and bartering systems), compare contemporary knowledge of sea turtle ecology, natural history and usage with historical and ethnographic accounts, and put that combined knowledge into preservable formats (in both English and Marshallese) for the use of cur-rent and future generations. By focusing on a culturally, traditionally and nutritionally important species and by investigating potential hazards to these species as well as the human populations that rely on them, this project will allow local par-ticipants to help identify and mitigate these hazards as well as gain experience in a wide array of research and investigative techniques that comprise the holistic approach of environmental anthropology. From ethnographic field techniques to sea turtle biology to maritime archaeology, the long-term benefits of this project will serve to decrease the dependence of the RMI on outside experts and provide potential and creative career skills for a future generation of Marshallese. The success of this project relies on the continual monitoring and testing of sea turtle health and population numbers. This cannot be done without trained experts within the Marshallese community to continue the project beyond what is described here. This project will result in real knowledge about the risks and hazards to sea turtles in the RMI environment, and real help on how to maintain cultural traditions in ways that support rather than undermine health. Results cannot be predicted, which is why this research is necessary. Possible outcomes include the finding that some portions of turtle cannot be safely consumed, but others can, consumption reserved for only the most special (and rare) occasions is not a risk (in terms of broader whole-system exposures), or that all edi-ble tissues must be avoided. Regardless of the result, this project will develop significant methodologies and establish the capacity and infrastructure for Marshallese-controlled testing/monitoring of native foods.
... "De grandes quantités de substances radioactives" furent trouvées au fond du lagon de Bikini (Berkhouse et al. 1984:159). Des études ultérieures montrèrent que certains organismes marins peuvent concentrer des produits de fission d'un facteur égal à 100 000 fois la dose normale dans leur environnement (Hacker 1987cité dans Weisgall 1994. Des produits de fission ont été observés dans des poissons, des bénitiers, des escargots, des huîtres, des coraux, des éponges, des poulpes, des crabes, des oursins, des holothuries, des langoustes, des crevettes et des algues du lagon. ...
Article
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Résumé Le document qui suit porte sur l'écologie des relations entre êtres humains et tortues marines aux Îles Marshall, sous l'angle de l'anthropologie environnementale, et décrit le contexte et la raison d'être d'un projet qui va être conduit pro-chainement par les auteurs et l'Institut universitaire des Îles Marshall. Cette étude examinera en particulier : 1) la possibilité de prendre les tortues marines pour témoins des risques et dangers encourus par l'homme ; 2) la possibilité d'étudier les niveaux de contamination des os et tissus des tortues marines pour en déduire les montants initiaux de substances toxiques introduites dans la zone considérée ; 3) la possibilité de déterminer les zones d'habitat affectées par les activités nucléaires à partir des variations chromosomiques induites par la contamination ; et 4) les effets des substances toxiques contenues dans l'environnement, par exemple celles résultant de conflits et d'expérimentations d'armes, sur la viabilité de la population de tortues marines, leur importance culturelle et leur intérêt alimentaire pour les populations des atolls.
... 28 On the other side are established beliefs, practices, and commitments traceable to the federal government's seminal role in the nuclear industry, including the founding of the health physics profession. 29 The belief that radiation risks to individuals can be reliably quantified decades after exposure occurred is a basic tenet of the health physics profession-one that federal health agencies have underwritten with generous funding. Erosion of this basic principle could yield costlier outcomes not just in the EEOICPA program, but in many sectors of the U.S. economy where workers are exposed to ionizing radiation, including electricity generation and health care. ...
Article
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In 2000, Congress passed the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA). EEOICPA provides compensation to employees of government-owned, contractor-operated facilities in the nuclear weapons complex. Employees of private-sector firms that had contracts with the federal government during the Cold War era may also be covered. EEOICPA establishes presumptive criteria for chronic beryllium disease and silicosis. Most radiation-related cancer claims are evaluated using historical dose reconstruction techniques, in conjunction with the concept of the “probability of causation.” Recent amendments to EEOICPA broaden coverage for illnesses in which exposure to toxic substances was a “significant factor in aggravating, contributing to or causing the illness.” Claims are paid from a federal trust fund, which obviates the need for annual congressional appropriations. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
... The other main post-war research area in which Oak Ridge became well known was reactor technology, and today that program's legacy survives as ORNL work on renewable energy and environmental studies (conservation and radioactive waste clean-up).3 Hacker, 1987; cf. Walker, 2000. ...
Article
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Experimental radiobiology represented a long-standing priority for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), but organizational issues initially impeded the laboratory progress of this government-funded work: who would direct such interdisciplinary investigations and how? And should the AEC support basic research or only mission-oriented projects? Alexander Hollaender’s vision for biology in the post-war world guided AEC initiatives at Oak Ridge, where he created and presided over the Division of Biology for nearly two decades (1947–1966). Hollaender’s scheme, at once entrepreneurial and system-oriented, made good use of the unique resources provided by the AEC and by Oak Ridge’s national laboratory setting, while at the same time it restructured wartime research practices to better reflect biologists’ own priorities. Because Hollaender offered many academic experimental biologists a way of envisioning military-related patronage as integral – rather than antithetical – to their professional identities, his work provides an important lens through which to examine the early post-war intellectual and institutional development of radiobiology.
... In 1944, based on more formal epidemiological inquiry, an excess of leukemia was reported among radiologists in the United States [1]. By World War II, there was sufficient understanding of the risks of radiation to motivate a program of protection for workers at the Manhattan Project in the United States [2]. Radiation epidemiology was launched when a program of studies was initiated by the then Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (eventually to become the Radiation Effects Research Foundation) to determine the consequences of radiation exposure from the nuclear blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki [3,4]. ...
Article
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This paper provides a perspective on epidemiological research on radiation and cancer, a field that has evolved over its six decade history. The review covers the current framework for assessing radiation risk and persistent questions about the details of these risks: is there a threshold and more generally, what is the shape of the dose-response relationship? How do risks vary over time and with age? What factors modify the risk of radiation? The example of radon progeny and lung cancer is considered as a case study, illustrating the modeling of epidemiological data to derive quantitative models and the coherence of the epidemiological and biological evidence. Finally, the manuscript considers the need for ongoing research, even in the face of research over a 60-year span.
... Barton Hacker, a historian working for the Department of Energy, began his official agency history with his volume, Dragon's Tail: Radiation Safety in the Manhattan Project 1942Project -1946Project , published in 1987, that hinted at but did not describe human experimentation. The book does make clear that early radiation scientists had a much clearer idea of radiation health effects, including cancer, than present apologists allow [17]. Barton Hacker's second volume, Elements of Controversy: A History of Radiation Safety in the Nuclear Test Program, was to have been published by the University of California Press in 1989 [18]. ...
... On the other side are established beliefs, practices, and commitments traceable to the federal government's seminal role in the nuclear industry, including the founding of the health physics profession (Hacker, 1987). The belief that radiation risks to individuals can be reliably quantified decades after exposure occurred is a basic tenet of the health physics profession-a tenet that federal health agencies have underwritten with generous funding. ...
Article
Nurses make a bureaucracy work on behalf of clients. Occupational health nurses who are already versed in basic concepts applicable to EEOICPA--confidence intervals, occupational histories, exposure assessment, and dose response--can play constructive, caring roles in assisting claimants in securing benefits under this landmark program. Occupational health nurses know that chronically ill employees have a finite number of hours a week to make phone calls, visit providers, and advocate on their own behalf. Thoughtful referrals to occupational health providers who are both experienced and supportive can come from an occupational health nurse or a family physician. Involvement of university-based programs in projects to empower organizations representing EEOICP claimants would be a welcome development.
... Test planners set up an elaborate offsite monitoring system and prepared evacuation plans if exposure levels became too high. 22 On July 16, 1945, the Trinity device detonated over the New Mexico desert and released approximately 21 kilotons of explosive yield. The predawn blast, which temporarily blinded the nearest observers 10,000 yards away, created an orange and yellow fireball about 2,000 feet in diameter from which emerged a narrow column that rose and flattened into a mushroom shape. ...
Article
this document Innovative Technology Summary Reports are designed to provide potential users with the information they need to quickly determine if a technology would apply to a particular environmental management problem. They are also designed for readers who may recommend that a technology be considered by prospective users. Each report describes a technology, system, or process that has been developed and tested with funding from DOE's Office of Science and Technology (OST). A report presents the full range of problems that a technology, system, or process will address and its advantages to the DOE cleanup in terms of system performance, cost, and cleanup effectiveness. Most reports include comparisons to baseline technologies as well as other competing technologies. Information about commercial availability and technology readiness for implementation is also included. Innovative Technology Summary Reports are intended to provide summary information. References for more detailed information are provided in an appendix. Efforts have been made to provide key data describing the performance, cost, and regulatory acceptance of the technology. If this information was not available at the time of publication, the omission is noted. All published Innovative Technology Summary Reports are available on the OST Web site at http://ost.em.doe.gov under "Publications." TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. SUMMARY page 1 2. TECHNOLOGY DESCRIPTION page 4 3. PERFORMANCE page 9 4. TECHNOLOGY APPLICABILITY AND ALTERNATIVES page 12 5. COST page 14 6. REGULATORY AND POLICY ISSUES page 18 7. LESSONS LEARNED page 20 APPENDICES A. REFERENCES page A-1 SUMMARY Technology Summary Figure 1. Tomographic site characterization using CPT, ERT, and GPR
Thesis
p>This thesis is an investigation of the relationship between imaginative writing and the nuclear state. As one ethnographer of nuclear societies, Hugh Gusterson, has argued recently, 'if there is any culture that deserves to be denaturalized and exoticized, hence opened up to a fresh and potentially critical perspective, it is surely that of America's generals, admirals, nuclear scientists, and defense contractors'. This thesis proposes a study of the literary representation (the 'nuclear fables') of that culture. Chapter One considers the scope of the relationship between representation and the bomb. It begins with an extended critique of recent attempts to generate a nuclear criticism from within a literary-critical framework. A new critical methodology is then developed, integrating these previous strategies with recent enthographic accounts of life in the nuclear state. This introductory chapter concludes with the illumination and definition of a specific 'nuclearist subjectivity'. The four chapters which follow trace the historical shifts in the representation of this 'nuclearist subject' in two waves of publication in the 1950s and the 1980s. Chapter Two is organized around a reading of Dexter Master's popular novel, The Accident (1955). This novel is treated as a representative nuclear fable from the first wave, and the reading is focused on the intersection of an anxious nuclearist subject with discourses of the body, of gender, and of ethnicity. Chapter Three continues the investigation of early nuclearist subjectivity, tracing the evolution of a confident nuclearist subject able to control atomic anxiety. It begins with readings of Michael Amrine's novel, Secret (1950), and Nothing So Strange (1947), a novel by James Hilton. C.P. Snow's 1954 novel, The New Men , is then used to suggest that the nuclearist subject is best understood as a particular reorganization of a pre-atomic social order. Chapter Four places the nuclear fable in the wider context of atomic war fiction. It is organized around a comparative reading of two representative fantasies of post-nuclear survival: Pat Frank's Alas, Babylon (1959), and Denis Johnson's Fiskadoro (1985). It is argued that these texts display the limits of nuclearist subjectivity, representing the possibilities and limitations of a space predicated on the loss of atomic self-control.</p
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The Trinity test of July 16, 1945, marked the scientific apex of the Manhattan Project. Often recognized as the symbolic birth of the nuclear age, Trinity’s multifaceted legacy remains just as captivating and complex today as it did 75 years ago. This paper examines why the test was necessary from a technical standpoint, shows how Los Alamos scientists planned the event, and explores the physical and emotional aftermaths of Trinity. The author also uses rarely accessed original records to reconstruct the story of Trinity’s health hazards, as seen through the eyes of radiation technicians and medical doctors as events unfolded. Trinity was conducted as the Potsdam Conference began, weeks after the collapse of Nazi Germany. It was considered necessary to let President Harry S. Truman know whether the United States possessed a nuclear capability ahead of his negotiations with Joseph Stalin, the Soviet premier. The author examines the competing priorities that drove the timetable for the test: international politics, security, and safety. Three weeks after Trinity, a gun-assembled enriched-uranium bomb called Little Boy was used against the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, Fat Man, a weaponized version of the imploding Trinity device, was dropped on Nagasaki. The author briefly examines these strikes and what impact they may have had on the Japanese surrender. The paper concludes by examining the legacy of the Trinity test 75 years into the age it helped usher in.
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Im vorliegenden Tagungsband wird „Zukunft“ nicht als anthropologische Konstante, sondern vielmehr als eine mit dem gesellschaftlichen und kulturellen Umfeld eng verknüpfte und dynamische Denkweise verstanden. Folglich liegt der Fokus des Bandes nicht allein auf der Frage, ob und wie Wissenschaften und Gesellschaften mit Zukunftskonzepten und Zukunftsvorstellungen umgegangen sind, sondern diese richtete sich auch darauf, die unterschiedlichen Schnittstellen ausfindig zu machen, die „Zukunft“ als Denkkategorie mit Gesellschaft und Wissenschaft verbinden.
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The first members of the British Mission — Otto Frisch and Ernest and Peggy Titterton — arrived in Los Alamos in mid-December, 1943, soon to be followed by Sir James and Lady Chadwick. Egon Bretscher came in February, 1944 and Rudolf and Genia Peierls shortly thereafter. The team was essentially complete by the fall of 1944, although Canadians Kathleen and J. Carson Mark did not arrive until May of 1945.1
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This article considers the pre-history and history of EG&G, Inc., a key contractor in America's nuclear weapons programme in the Cold War. EG&G was co-founded by M.I.T.’s Harold Edgerton, Kenneth J. Germeshausen, and Herbert E. Grier after World War II in order to serve the nuclear weapons timing and firing needs of the U.S. Department of Defense and Atomic Energy Commission. The three men began their collaboration in the 1930s at M.I.T. with work on flash photography. Indeed, their partnership began in high-speed ‘stroboscopic’ photography in the 1930s, became focused on nuclear weapon timing and firing in 1945–50, and eventually re-focused on high-speed photography in the 1950s. Instead of emphasizing, as others have, the reproduction and circulation of photographic images of nuclear detonations, this article examines how the convergence of photographic and ballistic regimes was constructed around what we call the ‘deep media’ of timing, firing, and exposing.
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When the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown sent gusts of radioactively contaminated air across the globe in 1986, both International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and its American affiliate, Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), set about their antinuclear activism with renewed vigour. PSR alone was swamped with phone calls from people living near nuclear reactors, weapons-testing sites, manufacturing facilities, waste dumps and uranium mines, as well as from Americans travelling and living abroad. People expressed concerns about the long and short-term effects of radiation exposure; they were anxious about the ecological threats of radiation; they wanted information on the difference between a commercial nuclear reactor meltdown and the fallout from a nuclear weapon explosion; and they worried about ‘the psychological aspects of nuclear crisis management’.1 Just six days after the accident, PSR orchestrated its largest press conference ever through its national office. The group called for American- Soviet negotiations to set up an ‘international protocol for cooperative management of disasters involving nuclear technology’, advocated the establishment of an international panel of scientists to study the long and short-term health effects of the Chernobyl disaster, and encouraged the immediate shut-down of all Department of Energy (DOE) ‘operated reactors until they [could] meet Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) standards’.2
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IntroductionThe Development of Nuclear Technology, 1895—1939Nuclear Technology and Nuclear WeaponsThe Atomic Energy Commission: Nuclear Weapons and Atoms for PeaceNuclear PowerNuclear ControversiesConclusion Bibliography
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Historians have generally agreed that even the cataclysmic events of the 1939-45 war involved no permanent alteration to the natural environment. The exception may be the areas where Allied and Axis Powers experimented with chemical/biological and radiation weapons. Although public awareness of the ensuing damage has generally been confined to the areas affected, there are two exceptions. Those of Gruinard Islands, off the western coast of Scotland, and Trinity Site, in central New Mexico. Not only do they still bear the scars of Allied experiments, but they have assumed symbolic roles in their respective countries. -J.Sheail
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The world's first atomic bomb was tested in New Mexico on 16 July 1945. From 1999 through 2008, scientists working for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gathered information relevant to past releases from Los Alamos activities, including the Trinity test. Detonation on a 30.5 m tower enhanced radioactive fallout, and terrain and wind patterns caused "hot spots" of deposition. Several ranchers reported that fallout resembling flour was visible for 4 to 5 d after the blast, and residents living as close as 19 km from ground zero collected rain water from metal roofs for drinking. Pressures to maintain secrecy and avoid legal claims led to decisions that would not likely have been made in later tests. Residents were not warned before the test or informed afterward about potential protective actions, and no evacuations were conducted. Occupied homes were overlooked on the day of the blast. Exposure rates in residential areas were recorded as high as 1.4 microC kg s (20 R h) using instruments that were crude, ill suited to field use, and incapable of effectively measuring alpha contamination from about 4.8 kg of unfissioned plutonium that was dispersed. Vehicle shielding and contamination were recognized but not corrected for. To date, the post-shot field team measurements have not been rigorously evaluated, cross-checked, adjusted, or subjected to uncertainty analysis. Evaluations of Trinity fallout published to date have not addressed internal doses to members of the public following intakes of contaminated air, water, or foods. The closing of these data gaps appears feasible with the information that has been assembled and would support placement of the Trinity event in perspective as a source of public radiation exposure and more defensible evaluation of the potential for human health effects.
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Thesis (M.A.)--Texas Tech University, 1999. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 224-243).
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Typescript (photocopy). Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 2003. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 142-157).
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All of the actinides are radioactive. Taken into the body, they damage and induce cancer in bone and liver, and in the lungs if inhaled, and U(VI) is a chemical kidney poison. Containment of radionuclides is fundamental to radiation protection, but if it is breached accidentally or deliberately, decontamination of exposed persons is needed to reduce the consequences of radionuclide intake. The only known way to reduce the health risks of internally deposited actinides is to accelerate their excretion with chelating agents. Ethylendiaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) and diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA) were introduced in the 1950's. DTPA is now clinically accepted, but its oral activity is low, it must be injected as a Ca(II) or Zn(II) chelate to avoid toxicity, and it is structurally unsuitable for chelating U(VI) or Np(V). Actinide penetration into the mammalian iron transport and storage systems suggested that actinide ions would form stable complexes with the Fe(III)-binding units found in potent selective natural iron chelators (siderophores). Testing of that biomimetic approach began in the late 1970's with the design, production, and assessment for in vivo Pu(IV) chelation of synthetic multidentate ligands based on the backbone structures and Fe(III)-binding groups of siderophores. New efficacious actinide chelators have emerged from that program, in particular, octadentate 3,4,3-LI(1,2-HOPO) and tetradentate 5-LIO(Me-3,2-HOPO) have potential for clinical acceptance. Both are much more effective than CaNa3-DTPA for decorporation of Pu(IV), Am(III), U(VI), and Np(IV,V), they are orally active, and toxicity is acceptably low at effective dosage.
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The postwar investments by several governments into the development of atomic energy for military and peaceful uses fuelled the fears not only of the exposure to acute doses of radiation as could be expected from nuclear accidents or atomic warfare but also of the long-term effects of low-dose exposure to radiation. Following similar studies pursued under the aegis of the Manhattan Project in the United States, the "genetics experiment" discussed by scientists and government officials in Britain soon after the war, consisted in large-scale low-dose irradiation experiments of laboratory animals to assess the effects of such exposures on humans. The essay deals with the history of that project and its impact on postwar genetics. It argues that radiobiological concerns driven by atomic politics lay at the heart of much genetics research after the war and that the atomic links are crucial to understand how genetics became an overriding concern in the late 20th century.
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