Blood Concentrations of Caesium-137 in People in the Far East and the Pacific Region

Abstract

CAESIUM-137, a fission product with a long half-life, is liable to be transmitted through the food chain to man when the environment is contaminated by radioactive fall-out. From the behaviour of caesium-137 concentrations in humans observed in several countries since 1959, it has been suggested that the concentrations in people vary with the current rates of fall-out and the cumulative concentrations in the environment as well as the food habits. Special emphasis should be laid on the last factor, because in some groups of Scandinavian Laplanders and Alaskan Eskimos average body burden in 1961 reached concentrations forty to sixty times greater than the average for northern temperate regions. The enhanced concentrations are believed to depend on particular food chain mechanisms comprising high consumption of highly contaminated meat of caribou or reindeer¹.