Abstract
Fallout deposition from the US nuclear weapons test program at Bikini and Enewetak Atolls (1946–1958) resulted in widespread nuclear fallout contamination of the northern Marshall Islands. About 85–90 % of the nuclear test-related dose delivered to resident populations is derived from ingestion of cesium-137 (137Cs) contained in locally grown tree-crop food products. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has developed a series of interactive internet applications to provide the public with an open access platform to learn more about radiological conditions in the Marshall Islands. The ingestion dose calculator application described here is one such feature whereby users can calculate hypothetical ingestion doses from 137Cs based on interactive user input matched to environmental data on the activity concentration of 137Cs contained in food plants such as coconut, breadfruit, Pandanus, and arrowroot. Users are asked to enter a date, an island and atoll location, a plant food type, and a daily intake amount (highlighted by the number of portions eaten per day in estimated gram equivalents). The application computes the user daily dose and the user equivalent annualized dose, and then compares the results with default settings based on dietary models developed for the Marshall Islands from independent dietary surveys. The default diets are based on a local plus imported food diet (or IA diet model) and an imported foods unavailable diet (or IUA diet model). Environmental data are decay corrected to the date entered by the user using an effective half-life of 137Cs of 8.5 years (http://marshallislands.llnl.gov).
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Acknowledgments
This work was performed under the auspices of the US Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in part under Contract W-7405-Eng-48 and in part under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. We thank our partners at the Office of Health and Safety, US Department of Energy for financial support, and the leadership of the four affected atolls in the Marshall Islands for helpful discussions and interaction.
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Kehl, S.R., Hamilton, T.F., Simpson, A.E. et al. Website application for calculating cesium-137 ingestion doses from consumption of locally grown foods in the Marshall Islands. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 296, 203–207 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-012-2153-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-012-2153-8