HC Deb 08 March 1979 vol 963 c735W
Mr. Litterick

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the intensity of the radioactive emissions in the immediate vicinity of a live human body.

Mrs. Shirley Williams

The radiation dose to an individual which derives from naturally occurring radionuclides within his or her own body is due primarily to the radioisotope potassium 40. In an average adult the annual absorbed dose is 17m rads to the whole body and the same to the gonads.

In areas of "normal" background radiation the absorbed dose to the whole body and gonads from external sources, that is, cosmic rays and radiation from radioactive materials in soil and rocks, etc. amounts to some 60m rads per year.