Links in the Transmission of Radionuclides Through Food Chains

Abstract

The transmission of radionuclides into and through the human food chain has been studied in some detail during the last 30 years. Initially the occasion for these studies was the environmental contamination resulting from atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, particularly those of high yield, which caused large discharges of fission products into the stratosphere, with subsequent worldwide deposition of various moderately long-lived radionuclides of biological impor­tance. The first report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), published in 1958, reviewed the evidence on the transmission of radioisotopes of Cs and Sr to human diets from such tests, and the significance of ¹³¹I and other radionuclides in early fallout (1). The same report mentioned the “high concentrations of radon and of its decay products [that had] been observed in ill-ventilated rooms of masonry buildings in certain areas.” It also noted, prophetically, that “radioactive contamination of man’s environment [might] arise from radioactive waste disposal and accidents involving dispersion of radioactivity” adding that “at the present time, the radiation doses from these two sources are negligible, but in the future they might become appreciable.”