Hanford Autopsy Study
History of the USTUR
The Hanford Autopsy Study
In 1949, the Hanford site of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) initiated what was described as “…a modest program of postmortem tissue sampling at autopsy…” (Nelson et al. 1972; Newton et al 1966, Newton et al 1968) This early human tissue research program collected and radiochemically analyzed tissue samples in an effort to:
(1) provide hospital pathologists with information on plutonium concentrations and doses within the body such that they could evaluate possible correlations between plutonium deposition and various diseases and
(2) provide a basis for assessing the effectiveness of occupational and environmental protection measures at the Hanford plutonium production site (Bruner 1968).
The Hanford autopsy study was initially presented in May of 1967 at the Seventh Annual Hanford Symposium on Biology held in Richland (Newton et al. 1968). Low, measurable levels of plutonium were found in the tissues of the local residents and Hanford site workers. However, most of the plutonium in the tissues was apparently attributable to fallout from nuclear weapons tests rather than occupational exposures or environmental releases from the Hanford site, although the highest individual tissue concentrations of plutonium were observed in the pulmonary lymph nodes of a worker with a history of occupational exposure. The study found that liver depositions were generally greater than depositions in the lung. Data from the collected bone samples were equivocal and a plea for further investigation and collaboration with other plutonium handling facilities was expressed.
The concluding paper at this meeting was given by H. D. Bruner of the Atomic Energy Commission Division of Biology and Medicine. Bruner proposed that a national Plutonium Registry be formed, graciously noting that the idea was not his own, but rather it had "…occurred to many men [at] about the same time." Such a registry would serve to correlate data from accidental plutonium intakes with the subsequent worker health records. He sketched the basic information and operating requirements for such a registry and noted that the Plutonium Registry should consider not only plutonium but other transuranium elements as well.
This page was last updated on June 1, 2007. usturwebmaster@tricity.wsu.edu
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