§ Mr. LivseyTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what calculation of radiation dose from plutonium to tracheo-bronchial lymph nodes was used to inform the Fourth report of the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment. [102846]
§ Yvette Cooper[holding answer 16 December 1999]: The Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment (COMARE) asked the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) to calculate radiation doses to the tracheo-bronchial lymph nodes of young people resident in the village of Seascale in Cumbria, who were aged 0 to 25 years. The doses calculated were for the period of time at which discharges of radioactive material from the Sellafield site were either at their highest (1975) or when the inhalation dose was at its highest (1955). However, even in the most pessimistic case in 1955, the total equivalent dose to the thoracic lymph nodes from natural background radiation is greater than that estimated from plutonium.