Updated SEPTEMBER 2022
A Titan II veteran won after 12 years from his first VBA appeal and a Judge who actually looked at the facts.
2021 IONIZATION RADIATION CLAIM WON BY TITAN II VETERAN
Even though the evidence below indicates a complete foul-up by the USAF you should be forewarned that filing a VA radiation claim for an illness will send your VA claim into a black hole. All Titan II vets after about 1965 did not have a radiation form 1141. This is just a warning that you will sit for a long time if you put radiation as the cause of your illness. Unless someone can get the USAF to release the Oak Ridge Warhead dismantling radiation documents there is no use to filing a radiation caused illness claim.
Read on...
Added 8/1//2018
Question to a warhead tech at DM AFB February 1974 to June 1977: Did you guys wear a dosimeter badge on yourself? Did anyone ever check the RV with a Geiger counter?
We neither wore a dosimeter badge nor were we offered to wear one. In fact, they were not available to be worn. Geiger counter? No. Absolutely not. To my recollection, we did not have a Geiger counter anywhere in the weapons bay or in the building.
We never checked the RV with a Geiger counter. We did with the PVD. We de-mated at least 3 RV's (that I remember) whereby their was a fuel leak at the site. Remember, If there was a leak, the first step in correcting the leak was to download the fuel. AND before the fuel could be downloaded, the RV had to be de-mated from the missile. Therefore, the NW Crew walked into level one knowing there was a fuel leak on site. Of course, we always had a PVD with us during these operations.
This is a "hot button" with the military. There is no doubt in my mind that a conscious effort would be made to remove information that would implicate the government of negligence. It sounds reasonable that your inquiries and links would be removed.
Bob S.
On the 1956 radiation form 1141 in the last column heading a DT-60 radiation dosimeter is listed. This would have been in direct violation of the 1962 Vandenberg medical symposium documents. So, it now looks as if the USAF ignored the 1962 USAF Vandenberg medical directive and did issue useless DT-60 radiation dosimeters which would only have been be good for an actual nuclear detonation. What about the radon gas from the soil and concrete that most likely leaked into the Titan II Nuclear Missile complexes? What about a damaged warhead?
The question of the Oak Ridge nuclear warhead dismantling facility allowing disclosure of the radiation readings from the warheads was answered ( By the USAF) as if the warhead was never checked for radiation before dismantling.Any readings recorded after dismantling were not appropriate to Titan II workers as the warhead was never dismantled at the sites. This makes no sense at all that a nuclear facility such as Oak Ridge would not check to see if any radiation leakage was occurring from the obsolete W53 warheads before dismantling.
I read the section in the Vandenberg industrial symposium document on radiation. Of interest is this statement in the document on page 48(actual page number on the bottom of the page) about the DT-60 dosimeter. I take away from reading page that the fact that the USAF medical people did not want the DT-60 to be used anywhere. Item 7 below is from the 1962 Vandenberg document:
"7. Personnel monitoring is another aspect that must be considered. You will usually have to recommend a system. In most cases the film badges are sufficient. As a rule of thumb, I would say that any time you use a "Caution High Radiation Area" sign you might wish to supplement the film badge with a pocket dosimeter that can be read at the end of each working day. This might well be the case of our calibration laboratories that have AN/UDMA 100-curie Cs-137 source. I also want to point out that if you have an overexposure to isotopes, that is more than 1.25 rem/quarter, you must report it to the ACE. I suggest you pass the information on to the USAF Radioisotope Committee so that we can report it to the proper AEC Compliance Region. Neutron badges present a special problem and you should contact the USAF Radiological Health Laboratory. Please do not say you are using DT-60's (click here). They were not designed to record levels below about 25 roentgen.” (29.1 millirem) http://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/radiation/rrroentgen.html
PLEASE NOTE: Multiple Veterans Board of Appeal (VBA) Judges have asked the USAF for the Titan II 9 to 10 megaton warhead emitted radiation due to the uranium on board. No assessment has ever been given to the VBA by the Under Secretary for Health as contemplated in 38 C.F.R. (that is on the record of VBA cases).
This lack of transparency by the VA and VBA is notably disturbing. Oak Ridge, Tennessee labs disassembled these old warheads(the final ones in 2012) and has the data for any radiation leakage. I think the VA and VBA has the responsibility to make these reports available for these obsolete warheads. To continue to shove this under the rug is disgraceful to all veterans who served. If the data from Oak Ridge shows that there was no radiation leakage from the W-53 nuclear warheads then that proof would be welcome by all service members who served by any the Titan II nuclear warheads.
If you have an ionizing radiation VA claim for a medical aliment caused by ionizing radiation please insist that the VA obtain the data from the dismantling of the Titan II W-53 warheads at Oak Ridge Tennessee. This is the only way, I can see, to end the speculation of whether or not these warheads leaked radiation of any kind. Also, insist the VA find out why the 1962 recomendation for using the foil radiation badges was not implemented as called out in the 1962 Vandenberg medical symposium document page 53-55 as being understaffed.
Of course, be prepared that the national security card will be played by the VA. I have found on another case that the VA sometimes plays this national security card even though the information has been sitting in some Senators files at his states library. Case in point is the Titan II safety report prepared for the Senate Arms committee in 1982. The VA said the Titan II Safety Report was classified however, the author of "Command and Control" found a copy in a prior Senators open library file in Arkansas.
In a navy veterans Board of Appeals case a Navy Commander physician stated the following:
Please reference Veterans Board of Appeals case number: Citation Nr: 1203082 http://www.va.gov/vetapp12/files1/1203082.txt
Decision Date: 01/27/12 Archive Date: 02/07/12
DOCKET NO. 09-27 719
“Additionally, the claims file contains several statements from a Dr. P.K. Most recently, in September 2011, this physician submitted a statement indicating that, in her opinion, the torpedo men who served aboard nuclear submarines prior to 1978 who developed cancer or lymphoma should be rated as having service connection. She noted that, prior to 1978, these men were berthed directly over nuclear armed torpedoes, such as the MK45 nuclear warhead and did not wear a dosimeter when sleeping. This sleeping arrangement was halted. The physician stated that, in her opinion, the VA radiation dose recorded for the Veteran is not an accurate reflection of his ionizing radiation exposure. She concluded by noting that, in her professional opinion as a former naval commander physician trained in undersea medicine, the recorded dosimeter record of the Veteran is not an accurate ionizing radiation exposure record for this former Navy diver/submariner. The ionizing radiation received by the Veteran while sleeping directly over a MK45 torpedo would be estimated to be at least two times the recorded dose derived from official military records.”
In a separate letter, it was noted that this physician completed 20 years of military service in 1991 leaving with the rank of Commander/USN, and her assignments included Submarine Base Groton, Connecticut. Besides board certification in Internal Medicine, her training included Undersea Medicine with aspects of radiation science."
If a MK45 (11 Kilotons) nuclear warhead has ionizing radiation as indicated by testimony by a naval commander physician why a Titan II warhead (9000 kilotons) would be any different at over 800 times the size especially if it was a dirty warhead containing 1% U234 in its U238 enriched uranium? Shielding should have had the same priority in either case for safety of personnel.
UPDATE 02/18/2016
From page 54 of the Vandenberg AFB document (download the whole Vandenberg PDF file from the link at the bottom of the page in the previous link):
"We have to check every film that comes in, so we check the film number against the card for positive identification, and when we do this it makes our job much easier and we can go ahead and process the film. We stick the cards in an IBM 526, the film comes out of the developing program, set right up and automatically when we re-offer them to our electronic-potentiometer it punches the dose on the card. It's that simple, if we can get the cooperation of the people in the field to sequence these cards; this saves days. We can give you 24 hours service, but we cannot if people do not submit these things properly. After the cards are punched by the computer dosimeter we take the cards and stick them in a 402 and comes out with the results and sends back the sheets that you see there. We give the organization,the man's name, social security number, film number and then the dose's reporting period in millirems and the doses in quarter-millirems, and also will give you a total accumulative dose on a quarterly basis. Now for you people who are maintaining an 1141, this total accumulative dose can be very, very important to you whereby you don't have to record on 1141 the monthly dose, the bi-weekly dose; you can if you wish, and if you have time in the small organizations it will be fine, but we can give you the total accumulative dose in millirems for any period of time, and that you can record on your 1141."
The DT-60 radiation dosimeter was a Navy dosimeter not USAF although it was given to the USAF Titan II Workers in the early 1962-3 range instead of the more sensitive film badges: https://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/radiac/CP95APD.htm
In the following Oak Ridge, Tennessee link on page 13 the wording that closely resembles the 1962 USAF Vandenberg document: https://orise.orau.gov/files/oewh/Y12FilmBadge-Gamma-rpt.pdf
"In 1962 a semiautomatic film reader was developed and installed during the third quarter to measure simultaneously the transmission of light through four film areas, namely an open window and plastic, aluminum, and cadmium filters. Light transmission measurements through each filter area were recorded in volt units on IBM cards (Y-12 Plant, 1963). Factors for converting the volt units to radiation dose were calculated from sets of calibrated films, and the radiation dose was tabulated by computer using the volt units on the IBM cards. The computer tabulated doses appear to have been used as the dose of record for each quarter. The film control program was also reviewed and changed to focus on dose levels of chief interest, i.e., at ranges from 120 mrem to 2500 mrem (Y-12 Plant, 1963; McLendon, 1963). The calibration films were exposed to gamma-ray doses ranging from zero to 5000 mrem, i.e., 0, 30, 120, 240, 480, 720, 960, 1440, 1920, 2880, 3840, and 5000 mrem."
UPDATE SEPT 4, 2015
Upon further review there were personal foil radiation dosimeters and Geiger counters supplied to the Titan II Launch Crews and other people working on the Titan II missile system until 1966. This is according to the Titan II Missile archivist Chuck Penson at the Titan II museum in Arizona in 2010 when he responded to another Titan II
Veteran.
There have been statements made from some veterans who were told by Sheppard AFB Titan II instructors that the radiation badges and Geiger counters were removed as no radiation was detected over the limits in place at that time. We will be asking Senator McCain's staff to please find the documents that gave reason for the removal of the radiation monitoring system. We now believe that this radiation detection system was installed in the LCC air intake and was alarming for some unknown reason that we are now trying to find out. It was installed to monitor the intake air for radiation contamination from a nuclear detonation so the crew would close the intake air valve.
Here is DD FORM 1141 which most Titan II workers never saw. However, between 1963-1966 Missile Launch Crews did have a DD form 1141. In fact some veterans of that era have asked for their DD form 1141 and have received a blank copy with no entries on the form. Obviously, this is very concerning as even if there was no radiation detected why were the entries not put on the form saying they had been tested and no radiation was found? This is standard procedure.
Updated August 4, 2015:
I have come across another researchers information on U-234 in nuclear warheads. The research he has done implicates that U-234 caused more serious radiation fall out (a real dirty bomb) in the actual detonation of the warhead. Of course, if this research is true it means there was more U-234 fissile material in the nuclear warhead than reported. This means that way more gamma radiation was released than the U-238 and U-235 materials on the un-detonated warhead. The question is how much more of the mass of the warhead was made up of the more contaminating U-234. Most information on the internet indicates there was barely any U-234 in the highly enriched uranium. Read his explanation:
Quoting from his research:
"I now have actual figures for the U-234 concentrations in actual nuclear material used in the bomb tests. They indicate that the U-234 concentration effect is a powerful one, leading to U-234 activity 36 times greater than the U-235 activity."
New addition information:
To support this theory of U-234 uranium in enriched uranium I researched the Oak Ridge, Tennessee nuke making facilities 1951 data base at http://web.ornl.gov/info/reports/1951/ (INFO AT THIS LINK HAS BEEN REMOVED-WONDER WHY!) scrolling down to the declassified document on dose radiation from enriched Uranium (document number 3445603607853 on page 5) it states their enriched uranium sample was comprised of 71.46% U-238, 27.46% U-235 and 1.08% was U-234. So for the Titan warhead of similar enriched uranium warhead there would be 15,000 grams of U-234. This would be a dirty nuke which would kill a population with massive radiation fallout per the article reference above. If this type of enriched material with 1% U-234 was in a Titan II dirty warhead the gamma radiation from the U-234 would be worse than the gamma radiation from U-238 or the U-235. The actual pdf from Oak Ridge : http://web.ornl.gov/info/reports/1951/3445603607853.pdf (INFO AT THIS LINK HAS BEEN REMOVED-WONDER WHY!)
Original start of the page:
My research on the amount of Gamma radiation (IONIZING RADIATION) we may have been exposed to while on duty with the Titan II nuclear missile warhead is ongoing at this point. As the design of the W53 warhead is classified it is only a guess as to its potential of damaging ionizing radiation. This is not done. I have found many conflicting reports on the safety of Warheads as you can imagine.
Titan II ICBM workers also did not have a DD form 1141 on our exposure to ionizing radiation. The question is why not? Some former Titan II Vets have claimed that a radiation detection system was installed in the 1960’s and was removed. If you have information please email me. Another Titan II Vet has said some McConnell AFB Crews had a dosimeter, which he was informed, was for radiation monitoring. If you have knowledge of this please email me.
Based on the following DOE press release it brings into doubt that we were totally safe working around the Titan II W53 warhead. However, these workers most likely inhaled particles from machining and grinding of the uranium metal to fit into the housing of nuclear warheads.
"In February 2000 the US Department of Energy (DOE) admitted for the first time that working in the nuclear weapons complex could have caused illness and death due to exposure to radiation or toxic chemicals. Soon after in a hearing, hundreds of former Hanford workers stated publicly what they weren't allowed to tell even their doctors during the Cold War." (more info further in this document)
Different radioactive materials and X-ray generators produce radiation at different energy levels and at different rates. It is important to understand the terms used to describe the energy and intensity of the radiation. The four terms used most for this purpose are: energy, activity, intensity and exposure.
1. We have to make a guess at the mass of U-235 (or U-238 dirty bomb) of our Titan II warhead.
The W53 Titan II warhead had about a 9 to 10 megaton yield. The uranium U-235 (indicated as one of the two possible Titan II warhead materials) fissile material needed to get this yield would have been;
Weapon designer Theodore Taylor wrote in 1987 that 6 kiloton/kilogram had been pretty much the upper limit of what had even been achieved. Only a handful of weapons got close to that.
So, we can calculate the size of the Titan II warhead by assuming in 1987 Taylor was talking about past experience and the Titan II fell into this category of 6 kiloton/kilogram enriched fissile material yield.
Calculating: 6 kiloton/kilogram * 1 megaton/1000 Kiloton = .006 Megaton/1 kiloton
Converting to Megatons: .006 Megaton/1 kiloton = 9 Megaton/ ? kilotons
Solving for ?kilotons: 9 Megaton/.006 Megaton/1 Kilogram = 1,500 kilograms of U-235 converting to grams x 1000 = 1,500,000 grams of U-235 97% enriched.
From the reference: http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/multimeg.html the total weight of the W53 was 3690 Kilograms. This left 2,190 kilograms for the housings, dirty jacket (to up the yield) and the secondary Lithium-6.
The Titan warhead may have also had the "Dirty Jacket" of U-238 to get the yield of 9 -10 megatons and have the most radioactive fallout.
2. Activity. The strength of a radioactive source is called its activity, which is defined as the rate at which the isotope decays. The curie (Ci) is also commonly used as the unit for activity of a particular source material. The curie is a quantity of radioactive material in which 37 billion atoms disintegrate per second.
From Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education the Specific Activity of U-235 is listed at 0.0000021 Curies/gram: http://orise.orau.gov/files/reacts/radiological-terms-quick-reference.pdf - on page 6.
For a "Dirty jacket Titan II Warhead" U-238 is listed as .00000033 Curies/gram :http://web.ead.anl.gov/uranium/pdf/UraniumCharacteristicsFS.PDF
From an article from Oak Ridge, Tennessee http://web.ornl.gov/info/reports/1951/3445603607853.pdf enriched Uranium had 1% U-234.
Radiation activity from the gamma rays only is the Specific Activity x mass of U-235. So 0.0000021 Curies/gram x 1,500,000 grams of U-235 = 3.15 Curies
Radiation activity "Dirty jacket warhead" calculation from U-238 is 0.00000033 Curies/gram x 1,500,000 grams of U-238 = .495 Curies
Radiation activity from from U-234 if present at 1% of total Uranium weight is 15,000 grams is .0062 Curies/gram = 93 Curies!
3. Radiation exposure from being around the warhead is going to be different depending on how many times you were in close proximity to the warhead and for how long. How old of a warhead was on that missile at the time. Decay from the radiation on the warhead shield (if there was one) would play a role. We are going to say no shield existed for the worse case. Two scenarios are shown below one for the Dirty U-238 jacket and one for the Clean U-235 jacket warheads.
The amount of dose an individual accumulates will depend on how long the individual stays in the radiation field:
Dose = Dose Rate x Time
rem = rem/hr x hr
Using this link to calculate for distance away from the Warhead: http://www.radprocalculator.com/Gamma.aspx
At 2 foot from the warhead the rems we would have received from the clean U-235 in 1 hour would have been 2 rems. Biological damage can result at 5 rems.
At 2 foot away from the dirty warhead made of U-238 for a one hour period the rems would have been .62 rems. Biological damage can result at 5 rems.
At 2 foot away from the dirty warhead with 1% of U-234 for a one hour period the rems would have been (way larger as 93 curies emits much more) to be determined.
The total lifetime dose should not exceed 40 rem(400mSv). Note: 1 rem = 1000 mremhttp://www.berthold-us.com/industrial/radiationsafety.pdf
4. Intensity? Radiation intensity is the amount of energy passing through a given area that is perpendicular to the direction of radiation travel in a given unit of time. The intensity of an X-ray or gamma-ray source can easily be measured with the right detector.
You need to be exposed to 3 to 10 MeV for biological damage.
Some non-governmental analysts assume that thermonuclear weapons have a casing made out of depleted uranium. If our weapon models each had a uranium case weighing 10 percent of the total mass, the case would be about 1 millimeter thick. Since the mean free path of 1-MeV gamma rays is much greater than that (14 millimeters), about half the gamma rays produced in the case would escape. The resulting gamma-ray flux would be about 10 times greater than that from a depleted uranium tamper, and would be detectable at a distance three times greater.
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http://www.ndt-ed.org/EducationResources/CommunityCollege/RadiationSafety/biological/biological.htm
Biological Effects
The occurrence of particular health effects from exposure to ionizing radiation is a complicated function of numerous factors including:
Type of radiation involved. All kinds of ionizing radiation can produce health effects. The main difference in the ability of alpha and beta particles and Gamma and X-rays to cause health effects is the amount of energy they have. Their energy determines how far they can penetrate into tissue and how much energy they are able to transmit directly or indirectly to tissues.
Size of dose received. The higher the dose of radiation received, the higher the likelihood of health effects.
Rate the dose is received. Tissue can receive larger dosages over a period of time. If the dosage occurs over a number of days or weeks, the results are often not as serious if a similar dose was received in a matter of minutes.
Part of the body exposed. Extremities such as the hands or feet are able to receive a greater amount of radiation with less resulting damage than blood forming organs housed in the torso. See radiosensitivity page for more information.
The age of the individual. As a person ages, cell division slows and the body is less sensitive to the effects of ionizing radiation. Once cell division has slowed, the effects of radiation are somewhat less damaging than when cells were rapidly dividing.
Biological differences. Some individuals are more sensitive to the effects of radiation than others. Studies have not been able to conclusively determine the differences.
Items listed below with the links are to aid in this discovery phase.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B53_nuclear_bomb
The B53 was the basis of the W-53 warhead carried by the Titan II Missile, which was decommissioned in 1987.
The warhead of the B53 used oralloy (highly enriched uranium) instead of plutonium for fission, with a mix of lithium-6 deuteride fuel for fusion. The explosive lens comprised a mixture of RDX and TNT, which was not insensitive. Two variants were made: the B53-Y1, a "dirty" weapon using a U-238-encased secondary, and the B53-Y2 "clean" version with a non-fissile (lead or tungsten) secondary casing. Explosive yield was approximately nine megatons.
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/W53_(nuclear_weapon)
The W53/B53 is a two-stage thermonuclear device. Safeguards are not known, but probably consist of a combination lock on the arming circuit. Its Primary was all highly enriched uranium, with no plutonium, and a lithium-6 deuteride Secondary. [1] The B53 is described as having both "clean" and "dirty" jackets, but there is no explanation of why the yield is stated as the same if the "dirty" jacket is indeed U-238, which would be expected to become a Tertiary stage and itself fission for additional yield.
The nuclear weapon demonstrated its safeguards by not partially or fully detonating.[2] That there was no detonation even of the Cyclotol/Composition B high explosives is impressive, as the explosive compression system of the W53 did not use one of the newer, safer insensitive high explosives
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/multimeg.html
The Titan II heavy ICBM
The Titan II carried the highest yield missile warhead ever deployed by the United States. This was the W53 warhead with a 9-megaton yield, which could be delivered by the Titan II to a range of 15,000 km.[18] About 60 W53 warheads were built from December 1962 to December 1963.[19]
Retirement of the remaining 52 Titan IIs began in September 1982.[24] The last one was removed from alert in May 1987.[25] Disassembly of W53 warheads had begun in October 1969[19] and was probably completed by 1988.
http://www.ndt-ed.org/EducationResources/CommunityCollege/RadiationSafety/theory/activity.htm
Different radioactive materials and X-ray generators produce radiation at different energy levels and at different rates. It is important to understand the terms used to describe the energy and intensity of the radiation. The four terms used most for this purpose are: energy, activity, intensity and exposure.
Radiation Energy
As mentioned previously, the energy of the radiation is responsible for its ability to penetrate matter. Higher energy radiation can penetrate more and higher density matter than low energy radiation. The energy of ionizing radiation is measured in electronvolts (eV). One electronvolt is an extremely small amount of energy so it is common to use kiloelectronvolts (keV) and megaelectronvolt (MeV). An electronvolt is a measure of energy, which is different from a volt which is a measure of the electrical potential between two positions. Specifically, an electronvolt is the kinetic energy gained by an electron passing through a potential difference of one volt. X-ray generators have a control to adjust the keV or the kV.
http://www.colorado.edu/physics/phys1140/phys1140_sp05/Experiments/O1Fall04.pdf
gamma rays: γ rays are high-energy photons, i.e. particles of electromagnetic radiation, like x-rays, but with higher energy, and more dangerous, with much greater penetrating power. x-rays in medical applications are typically 20 keV in energy; gamma rays from nuclear reactions have energies of MeV. Several inches of lead are needed to completely stop high-energy γ’s
Another unit of radiation is the rad, (short for radiation absorbed dose), which describes the dose which an exposed person receives. A rad is the amount of radiation which deposits 0.01 J of energy into 1 kg of absorbing material.
Neither the curie nor the rad can be used to adequately describe the biological damage due to radiation, because such damage depends strongly on the type of the radiation. α is the most dangerous, followed by β, then γ. A 1 rad dose of α radiation does about 20 times more damage to cell tissue than a 1 rad dose of γ radiation. The rem is a unit which takes into account both the dose in rad and the type of radiation
dose in rem = dose in rad × RBE factor (relative biological effectiveness)
RBE = 1 for γ, ≈1.6 for β, and 20 for α.
http://www.des.umd.edu/rs/prod/tmsgrpd/device.html
Radiation Protection and Control of Exposures
External Radiation Protection
The three basic methods used to reduce the external radiation hazard are time, distance, and shielding. Good radiation protection practices require optimization of these fundamental techniques.
Time
The amount of dose an individual accumulates will depend on how long the individual stays in the radiation field:
Dose = Dose Rate x Time
mrem = mrem/hr x hr
Therefore, to limit a person's dose, one can restrict the time spent in the area. The length of time a person can stay in an area without exceeding a prescribed limit is called the "stay time" and is calculated from the simple relationship: Stay Time = Limit (mrem)
Dose Rate (mrem/hr)
Example: How long can a radiation worker stay in a 1.5 rem/hr radiation field if we wish to limit a dose to 100 mrem? Stay Time = 100 mrem = 0.667 hr = 4 minutes
1500 mrem/hr
http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/faqs/radiation.html
How Much Radioactive Material Is Present?
The size or weight of a quantity of material does not indicate how much radioactivity is present. A large quantity of material can contain a very small amount of radioactivity, or a very small amount of material can have a lot of radioactivity.
For example, uranium-238, with a 4.5-billion-year half-life, has only 0.00015 curies of activity per pound, while cobalt-60, with a 5.3-year half-life, has nearly 513,000 curies of activity per pound. This "specific activity," or curies per unit mass, of a radioisotope depends on the unique radioactive half-life and dictates the time it takes for half the radioactive atoms to decay.
http://www.ccnr.org/plute.html
At the other end of the spectrum, advanced nuclear weapon states such as the United States and Russia, using modern designs, could produce weapons from reactor-grade plutonium having reliable explosive yields, weight, and other characteristics generally comparable to those of weapons made from weapons-grade plutonium.
The greater radioactivity would mean increased radiation doses to workers fabricating such weapons, and military personnel spending long periods of time in close proximity to them, and the greater heat and radiation generated from reactor-grade plutonium might result in a need to replace certain weapon components more frequently.
Proliferating states using designs of intermediate sophistication could produce weapons with assured yields substantially higher than the kiloton-range possible with a simple, first-generation nuclear device.
Every state which has built nuclear weapons from plutonium to date has chosen to produce weapons-grade plutonium for that purpose. States have been willing to make large investments in some cases to acquire weapon-grade rather than reactor-grade plutonium: the United States, for example, in the 1980s, considered spending billions of dollars on the Special Isotope Separation facility to enrich reactor-grade plutonium to weapon-grade.
How is radiation measured?
http://www.psr.org/chapters/washington/hanford/hanford-and-human-health.html
Radiation can be measured in units (sieverts or REM) that take into account the biological effect of different types of radiation. One sievert equals 100 REM. Doses of radiation greater than 3-4 sieverts or 300-400 REM can cause death.
Will people who have been exposed to radiation get help?
In February 2000 the US Department of Energy (DOE) admitted for the first time that working in the nuclear weapons complex could have caused illness and death due to exposure to radiation or toxic chemicals. Soon after in a hearing, hundreds of former Hanford workers stated publicly what they weren't allowed to tell even their doctors during the Cold War.9 In October 2000 the US Congress and President Clinton signed into law the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act, for which an estimated 4,000 workers could be eligible.10 As of April, 2002, " 24,000 workers nationalwide had filed claims, but fewer than 2,700 had been approved." (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 19, 2002, p. A13). The legislation does not address the health issues of workers families or non-worker citizens in the Hanford area who may also suffer from radiation induced illnesses.11
http://www.berthold-us.com/industrial/radiationsafety.pdf
330 mrem Average Exposure For Total Population
500 mrem MAX for NON OCCUPATIONALLY EXPOSED PERSONS
1500 mrem CATEGORY B RADIATION WORKERS
5000 mrem CATEGORY A RADIATION WORKERS
The personal doses must be monitored by means of officially approved dosimeters. A medical examination once a year is mandatory. In this case, too, the body dose per quarter must not exceed fifty percent of the annual dose. The total lifetime dose should not exceed 40 rem(400mSv). Note: 1 rem = 1000 mrem
The following effects may result when the whole body is exposed to radiation for a short term:
DOSE EFFECT
up to 0,2 Sv (20,000 mrem)
No effect evident
up to 1 Sv (100 rem) Slight changes of th e blood structure but no damage is likely
1 to 2 Sv (200 rem) Radiation hang-over, vomiting; serious illness possible; good chance of recuperation
2 to 6 Sv (200-600rem) Increase in mortality
More than 6 Sv (600 rem) No chance of survival
Note: 1 rem = 1000 mrem
Permanent exposure to radiation with even distribution causes much less damage, due to the regenerative capacity of living organisms, but may nevertheless lead to chronic illnesses (latent somatic damage), such as leukemia or other kind of cancer. This is also the case if the body is exposed only once to a high dose of radiation.
Measurement of radiation: Conventional units of measurement include the roentgen, rad, and rem. The roentgen (R) is a unit of exposure measuring the ionizing ability of x- or gamma radiation in air. The radiation absorbed dose (rad) is the amount of that radiation energy absorbed per unit of mass. Because biologic damage per rad varies with radiation type (eg, it is higher for neutrons than for x- or gamma radiation), the dose in rad is corrected by a quality factor; the resulting effective dose unit is the roentgen equivalent in man (rem). Outside the US and in the scientific literature, SI units are used, in which the rad is replaced by the gray (Gy) and the rem by the sievert (Sv); 1 Gy = 100 rad and 1 Sv = 100 rem. The rad and rem (and hence Gy and Sv) are essentially equal (ie, the quality factor equals 1) when describing gamma or beta radiation.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23343599
The minimum dose of gamma knife radiosurgery that causes radiation injury in normal optic nerves is 12 Gy; however, the minimum dose is 11 Gy in compressed optic nerves.
So: 12 Gy=1200 rem.
FROM Europe pubmed website:
A cohort mortality study was conducted of 15,727 white men employed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory, a nuclear research and development facility. Some of the workers at this facility have been exposed to various forms of ionizing radiation and other potentially hazardous materials. These analyses focused on whole-body ionizing radiation exposures and internal depositions of plutonium. The results indicated that overall mortality among this cohort is quite low, even after nearly 30 y of follow-up. No cause of death was significantly elevated among plutonium-exposed workers when compared with their unexposed coworkers; however, a rate ratio for lung cancer of 1.78 (95% CI = 0.79-3.99) was observed. A case of osteogenic sarcoma, a type of cancer related to plutonium exposure in animal studies, was also observed. Dose-response relationships for whole-body dose from external ionizing radiation and tritium were observed for cancers of the brain/central nervous system, the esophagus, and Hodgkin's disease.
ATSDR URANIUM
This profile is primarily concerned with the effects of exposure to natural and depleted uranium, but does include limited discussion regarding enriched uranium,which is considered to be more of a radiological than a chemical hazard. Also, whenever the term radiation is used, it applies to ionizing radiation and not to non-ionizing radiation.
Enriched uranium is quantified by its 235U mass percentage.
Uranium enrichment for nuclear energy produces uranium that typically contains 3% 235U. Uranium enrichment for a number of other purposes, including nuclear weapons, can produce uranium that contains as much as 97.3% 235U and has a higher specific activity (~50 μCi/g). The residual uranium after the enrichment process is called “depleted uranium,” which possesses even less radioactivity (0.36 μCi/g)
than natural uranium. The USNRC considers the specific activity of depleted uranium to be 0.36 μCi/g (10 CFR 20), but more aggressive enrichment processes can drive this value slightly lower (0.33 μCi/g).
In this profile, both natural and depleted uranium are referred to as “uranium,” although depleted uranium is specified when this use benefits the text. The higher specific-activity mixtures and isotopes are described in the profile as “enriched uranium” or as 232U, 233U, or 234U, as applicable, in the summary of the studies in which these mixtures and isotopes were used.
However, in exposures to more radioactive uranium isotopes (e.g., 232U and 233U, and combined 234U and 235U in enriched uranium), it has been suggested that the chemical and radiological toxicity may be additive or may potentiate in some instances. In these instances, this dual mode of uranium toxicity may not be distinguishable by end point because of the overlap of etiology and manifested effects. Although the mechanism of this interaction is as yet unclear, it is not necessary to
know it in order to identify critical targets of toxicity or evaluate the dose-response relationships.
FROM (DOE) DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
A second study of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory cohort was published in 1991. The study found a statistically significant excess death rate from all leukemia combined although there was no correlation with the amount of ionizing radiation encountered in the workplace. The overall cancer death rate increased with increasing exposure to ionizing radiation. The statistical tables in the 1991 publication were in error, but the conclusions remained unchanged. In 1992 a second publication analyzed associations between cancer mortality and occupation. The author concluded that isotope production, chemical operations and exposures to mercury, beryllium and lead may be associated with higher cancer risks. The vital status of the workers included in the Oak Ridge study is expected to be updated through 1990.
Authors: Jim Falk & Roger Bodman energyscience.org.au
Protection against radiation. Workers have to be suitably protected and exposed as little as possible to the ionizing radiation that uranium emits, the danger of which increases with higher levels of enrichment.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ionizing radiation includes cosmic rays, Alpha particles, Beta particles, Gamma rays, X-rays, and in general any charged particle moving at relativistic speeds.
Any charged massive particle can ionize atoms directly through Coulomb forces if it carries sufficient kinetic energy. This includes atomic nuclei, electrons, muons, charged pions, protons, and energetic charged nuclei stripped of their electrons, all of which must be moving at relativistic speeds in order to carry the required kinetic energy. The first two to be recognized were given special names which persist today: helium nuclei at relativistic speeds are called alpha particles
Ionizing radiation is generally harmful and potentially lethal to living things but can have health benefits in radiation therapy for the treatment of cancer and thyrotoxicosis. Its most common impact is the induction of cancer with a latent period of years or decades after exposure.