Estimates of radiation dose and health risks to the United States population following the Chernobyl nuclear plant accident.

Estimates of both individual and collective doses received by the United States population following the Chernobyl accident have been made by using the data obtained from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Radiation Ambient Monitoring System. Radionuclides associated with the debris first were measured in precipitation and surface air particulates at Portland, OR and Olympia, WA on 5 May 1986. Iodine-131 was the most consistently measured nuclide in all media, although several Cs and Ru isotopes also were observed. Strontium and any actinides notably were absent from the samples at the lower level of detection. The highest calculated individual-organ dose due to intake during May and June 1986 was 0.52 mSv to the infant thyroid in the state of Washington. This was predominantly (98%) from the ingestion of milk. The maximum U.S. collective dose equivalent to any organ was calculated to be 3,300 person-Sv to the thyroid. Risk estimates project three excess lung cancer deaths and an additional four deaths due to cancers of thyroid, breast and leukemia in the U.S. population over the next 45 y from exposure during the May-June 1986 interval. The only long-lived radionuclide measured in milk samples following the accident was 137Cs. We estimate 20 excess fatalities from the ingestion of 137Cs in milk during all subsequent years, with six of these due to lung cancer and the majority of the remainder distributed approximately equally among cancers of the thyroid, breast, liver and leukemia. A total of 100 excess fatalities from all dietary components was estimated. Because of the uncertainty of risk estimates from data such as those available for this study, all calculated values carry a range of uncertainty from a minimum of one-half the calculated value to a maximum of two times the calculated value. The estimated excess fatalities given above may be compared with corresponding projected cancer mortality from all other causes: 41,000 fatalities from thyroid cancer and 3,800,000 fatalities from lung cancer are estimated to occur within the U.S. population during the next 45 y.