THE ATOM: The Peril of Strontium 90

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Talk about the perils of atomic radiation has swelled in volume and intensity ever since the U.S. and Russia fired their much-publicized H-bombs in 1954. From public forums and presses all over the world has come an unending stream of speeches, pamphlets and books—some of them by eminent scientists—upgrading or downgrading the dangers of radioactive fallout to mankind, condemning or defending the testing of nuclear weapons. At the crux of the debate is the question: How perilous to man is the key element in H-bomb fallout, strontium 90?

The amounts of radioactivity that people carry in their bodies from natural causes—e.g., from cosmic rays—is "very much larger" than those derived from H-bomb fallout, replied Dr. Willard Libby, top nuclear chemist and lone scientist member of the Atomic Energy Commission, last week. Furthermore, the amount of radiation produced in humans by the fallout is "less than 1% of the maximum permissible concentration" and there is general agreement that it would take "larger concentrations, perhaps tenfold greater," to produce harmful results. Libby provided a striking example: the present dosage of strontium 90 in the bones of children is no more dangerous than the radioactive dosage a person would receive from cosmic rays if he moved "from a beach to the top of a hill a few hundred feet high."

Libby did not deny that there was risk in the tests; for example, "excessive dosages" of strontium 90 can cause bone cancer and leukemia in animals, "so we should not casually dismiss the possibility of harmful results from fallout." But the risk appears to be remote. Reason: there is no present evidence that people living at high altitudes or on land with heavy uranium deposits are more susceptible to these diseases than anyone else. In sum, the risk to man from H-bomb testing "is extremely small compared with risks which persons everywhere take as a normal part of their lives."

Willard Libby was primarily addressing himself to Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the illustrious missionary-physician and Nobel Peace Prizewinner, who had called for an end to H-bomb testing because of the strontium 90 peril. Is it not preferable. Dr. Libby gently asked Dr. Schweitzer, to accept this small risk rather than "the far greater risk, to freedom-loving people everywhere," of slackening "our defenses against the totalitarian forces"—until some method of safeguarded disarmament has been achieved?