Population exposure by the ingestion pathway in West Germany, Austria, and Switzerland in the first two years after the Chernobyl accident

The report shows the results of the whole-body measurements of the German, Austrian and Swiss measuring stations in the first two years after Chernobyl. By comparing these results with the radiation burden from natural and man-made sources, an evaluation of the radiation burden of the population of the Federal Republic of Germany after Chernobyl is carried out. It turns out that this burden is low compared with the natural radiation level and as high as the radiation burden in 1963 after the nuclear bomb tests had been finished. Collective doses of 2,100 sieverts were measured in the first year after Chernobyl. The total dose of the population on account of natural radiation sources, however, amounts to 134,000 sieverts per year considering the fact that the individual dose which is dependent on the place of residence ranges from 1,000 up to 6,000 μSv per year and person. The total collective dose of the population of the Federal Republic from natural and man-made sources amounts to about 214,000 Sv per year. Thus the total dose of the radiation burden in the first year after Chernobyl caused by the ingestion of contaminated food amounts to only about 1.5% of the natural and 1% of the total radiation burden. It is low compared with the natural resp. the total radiation burden. In the second year after Chernobyl the radiation burden was all in all about the same as it was in the first year. In the third year the dose commitment will be considerably lower than in the first two years. In Juelich it will presumably be lower than 5 μSv per year. The attempts at of calculating the number of people that are still expected to die of cancer after Chernobyl in the opinion of various authors are evaluated on the basis of risk estimates on the cancer mortality of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (orig./HP)