Session TA8 - Incidents and Accidents. On the reduction of internal radiation doses resulting from ingestion of Cs-137 in areas contaminated by the Chernobyl accident

After the Chernobyl reactor accident wide areas of Belarus were contaminated with radioactive fallout. A population group of special concern comprise children living in contaminated regions. Recent data on the radiation burden of children indicate that the international annual population dose limit of 1 mSv is still exceeded in some cases. In situations where common means of dose-reduction are not sufficient, the clarification of the usefulness of additional means, such as the cure-like application of pectin preparations, makes sense. A reduction of the equivalent biological half-life through the use of a pectin preparation by a factor of 2.5 has been observed in a double-blind study. Though for the age class of ten year old children a simplified scenario indicates that an avoidance of up to one third of the annual internal effective dose might be achievable by two 4-week cure-like pectin applications the most advisable way of averting dose remains the permanent use of clean food.