Autopsy Tissue Program. [Plutonium determination in selected tissues of human cadavers] [electronic resource].

Published:: Los Alamos, N.M. : Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, 1979.
Oak Ridge, Tenn. : Distributed by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, U.S. Dept. of Energy.
Physical Description:: Pages: 50 : digital, PDF file
Additional Creators:: Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory and United States. Department of Energy. Office of Scientific and Technical Information

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Summary:

The Autopsy Tissue Program was begun in 1960. To date, tissues on 900 or more persons in 7 geographic regions have been collected and analyzed for plutonium content. The tissues generally consist of lung, liver, kidney, lymph, bone, and gonadal tissue for each individual. The original objective of the program was to determine the level of plutonium in human tissues due solely to fall-out from weapons testing. The baseline thus established was to be used to evaluate future changes. From the first, this program was beset with chemical and statistical difficulties. Many factors whose effects were not recognized and not planned for were found later to be important. Privacy and ethical considerations hindered the gathering of adequate data. Since the chemists were looking for amounts of plutonium very close to background, possible contamination was a very real problem. Widely used chemical techniques introduced a host of statistical problems. The difficulties encountered touch on areas common to large data sets, unusual outlier detection methods, minimum detection limits, problems with Aliquot sizes, and time-trends in the data. The conclusions point out areas to which the biologists will have to devote much more careful attention than was believed.

Report Numbers:

E 1.99:la-ur-79-2782
E 1.99: conf-791076-1
conf-791076-1
la-ur-79-2782

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Note:

Published through SciTech Connect.
01/01/1979.
"la-ur-79-2782"
" conf-791076-1"
DOE statistical symposium, Oak Ridge, TN, USA, 25 Oct 1979.
Tietjen, G.; Fox, T.

Funding Information:

W-7405-ENG-36

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