Plutonium Found In Teens' Teeth

August 5, 1997

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Plutonium is showing up in the teeth of teenaged children in Britain and Ireland who live near the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant, according to a report in the magazine New Scientist. The analysis of 3,300 teeth taken from adolescents during orthodontic treatment found that the levels of plutonium were greater the closer the teens lived to the plant, which is in West Cumbria, in Northern England.

However, the radiation represents about one thousandth of the radioactive material to which the body is exposed, according to Nick Priest, who conducted the study while head of the biomedical research department at AEA Technology in Harwell. Priest is author of the study that was published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

"Any health effect from the Sellafield plutonium is likely to be swamped by these other exposures," he told New Scientist. While the Sellafield plant is the only likely source of plutonium in the U.K., other radiation exposures can come from radon in rock or other natural sources.

The study found that those children living within 75 kilometers (about 47 miles), of the plant had 7 millibecquerels of plutonium per kilogram of weight. Between 75 km and 225 km (140 miles) the level was 5 millibecquerels, and beyond 225 km the level dropped to 3 millibecquerels.

The plutonium most likely comes from emissions from the Sellafield plant in the past 15 or 20 years.

"One could speculate that the results would have been much higher in the past," Priest told New Scientist. There were higher routine emissions from the plant in the 1970s and a fire at the plant in 1957. The plant reprocesses fuel from nuclear power stations around the world to convert it into forms that can be used as fuel or disposed of.

SOURCE: New Scientist (August 2, 1997, p. 16)