Estimates of doses from global fallout

Abstract

This paper summarizes information about external and internal doses resulting from global fallout and presents preliminary estimates of doses resulting from intermediate fallout in the contiguous United States. Most of the data on global fallout were extracted from the reports of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, in which the radiation exposures from fallout have been extensively reviewed at regular intervals. United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation estimated the average effective doses received by the world's population before 2000 to be about 0.4 mSv from external irradiation and 0.6 mSv from internal irradiation, the main radionuclide contributing to the effective dose being 137Cs. Effective doses received beyond 2000 result mainly from the environmentally mobile, long-lived 14C and amount to about 2.5 mSv summed over present and future generations. Specific information about the doses from fallout received by the United States population is based on the preliminary results of a study requested by the U.S. Congress and conducted jointly by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute. Separate calculations were made for the tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site and for the high-yield tests conducted mainly by the United States and the former Soviet Union at sites far away from the contiguous United States (global tests). The estimated average doses from external irradiation received by the United States population were about 0.5 mGy for Nevada Test Site fallout and about 0.7 mGy for global fallout. These values vary little from one organ or tissue of the body to another. In contrast, the average doses from internal irradiation vary markedly from one organ or tissue to another; estimated average thyroid doses to children born in 1951 were about 30 mGy from Nevada Test Site fallout and about 2 mGy from global fallout.