Mortality Among Workers with Chronic Radiation Sickness

Abstract

This study is based on a registry containing medical and dosimetric data of the employees who began working at different plants of the Mayak nuclear complex between 1948 and 1958 who developed chronic radiation sickness. Mayak is the first nuclear weapons plutonium production enterprise built in Russia and includes nuclear reactors, a radiochemical plant for plutonium separation, and a plutonium production plant. Workers whose employment began between 1948 and 1958 exhibited a 6-28% incidence of chronic radiation sickness at the different facilities. There were no cases of chronic radiation sickness among those who began working after 1958. Data on doses of external whole-body gamma-irradiation and mortality in workers with chronic radiation sickness are presented.