Experiments on the reduction of radiocesium in pigs by adding clay minerals to the contaminated feed

For some time now clay minerals are used as feed additives in animal production but are even discussed lately as a possibility of decontamination of radiocesium in the living animal because of their ion exchange property. The nuclear accident of Chernobyl in April 1986 induced the Austrian government to set radioactivity limits for contamination with Cs-137 and 134. For pork the total of 5nCi Cs-137 and 134/kg was set which proved to be a problem for pig fattening when fed on whey and concentrate. The aim of this study was to see if the addition of clays to the animal feed can reduce the cesium content in the meat. After 3 short-term-trials with the total amount of 21 animals one long-term pig-fattening experiment with 40 animals was conducted. For 70 days their feed contained fallout Cs in form of dried whey. The control group was fed the normal ration, for test group 1 bentonite and for test group 2 bolus alba were mixed into the concentrate in amounts corresponding to 5%. After administering fallout-Cs for 70 days 5 animals of each group were slaughtered and the Cs-activity specified in leg, butt, neck, liver, kidney and blood. With exception of the liver the mean values of the control group reached higher levels than 5nCi Cs-137 and 134, test group 2 showed the same tendency in the leg. Test group 1 proved satisfactorily with all mean values well beyond the limit with highly significant response. Feeding the remaining animals with uncontaminated rations of feed it could be demonstrated that bentonite decreases the biological half-life of cesium. 52 refs., 10 figs., 26 tabs