Radiation Worries : Soviet Souvenirs: Confusion, Anger

When Mary Anne Hardy returned from a trip to the Soviet Union last week, she was concerned about the amount of radiation her body might have absorbed because of the nuclear accident at Chernobyl.

The Pacific Palisades psychotherapist was one of 62 American members of a tour group that visited four Soviet cities. They arrived in Kiev on April 28, two days after the nuclear disaster occurred, without knowing anything of events at the power plant 60 miles away.

The surprise and concern she and other travelers felt on learning about the accident did not end as their Finnair jet landed at Los Angeles International Airport Thursday. If anything, their anxieties have increased, they said during recent interviews.

Not only did the group receive no advice or guidance about possible health risks or contamination of their belongings, either before or after they went through customs, but those like Hardy who sought testing to allay their fears discovered it was not easy to find out where to go.

‘Told Nothing’

“We were told nothing; we were met by no one,” said Patricia Sun, director of the Berkeley-based Institute of Communication for Understanding, which organized the trip “to promote understanding between our two cultures.”

Numerous calls to local, state and federal agencies, Sun said, found little interest in their concerns.

“I expected to see some kind of testing at the airport, but there wasn’t anything,” said Wendy Milette of Laguna Beach, who had been hired to videotape highlights of the trip.

“The Public Health Service did not recommend screening for people coming from Russia on a routine basis,” explained Shirley Barth, spokeswoman for the U.S. Public Health Service in Washington.

The Americans in Kiev were there only “a short time,” she added. “The real danger would be exposure over a long period of time.”

But the travelers were unconvinced, Sun said.

“There was so much misinformation. The specifics about the hazard both in Kiev and here was so confusing,” she said.

Once news of the accident became known to them--two days after arriving in Kiev--the group was advised by a science officer at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow that it was safe to continue their trip, she said.

After they left Kiev, the group was tested individually with Geiger counters at a Moscow hospital and told things were “normal,” Sun said.

But the travelers still worried.

“I suggested to everyone in the group that they get tested” upon returning home, Sun said.

A survey done over the weekend of tour members who had sought testing, according to tour administrator Marti Stinson of Arcadia, showed that “people are testing OK physically. But their luggage has tested at high (radiation) levels. Luggage and shoes.”

Tests done with surface survey instruments, such as a Geiger counter, on a handful of travelers by the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services and the Orange County Health Care Agency turned up some clothing contamination, spokesmen for both agencies said.

Danger Downplayed

“The levels that we’re measuring would not have any significance as far as any immediate health hazard or risk of cancer,” said Bob Merryman, director of Orange County’s Environmental Health Division.

Those with contaminated clothing are advised to “wash it, if it is washable,” said Toby Milligan, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County health department. “If the clothing has low levels of contamination, it could be worn with no risk.”

One schoolteacher, who asked not to be quoted by name, said when the Los Angeles County health department checked her body and her belongings, her hair had tested “high,” and, as a result, she had it cut.

The experience of finding out how to be tested, how to interpret the tests and the problem of what to do with radioactive shoes or luggage left several of the travelers feeling that they should become more knowledgeable about radiation exposure.

“I didn’t know anything about radiation, and I bet I’m reflective of the population at large,” Hardy said.

Like many of the returned travelers, Hardy went through a series of phone calls to the Los Angeles County health department and UCLA Medical Center, before she persuaded health specialists at the San Onofre nuclear power plant near San Clemente to test her.

The tests indicated that her body had received a small percentage of the permissible radiation dosage set by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, San Onofre health physicist Peter Knapp said.

Standards set by the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements place the radiation dose limit for an individual member of the general public at no more than 500 millirems a year. The average medical X-ray contains a dose of 75 millirems, for example. Hardy, according to Knapp, tested less than that.

Hardy remains concerned however, because, she said, “the elevated readings of iodine had settled in my thyroid.”

Contamination Found

Surface testing of her luggage and clothing showed contamination, she said, and she left the items with plant officials for disposal.

“Ninety-five per cent of my things tested at high levels,” she said. “I wound up coming home with two little plastic bags out of 40 pounds of stuff.”

Tour member Dyanne Reagan, a real estate saleswoman from El Toro, said she had seen an endocrinologist to have a blood test but has not yet learned the results. She left her luggage and boots in her garage, she added, but has not had them tested.

“I have a lot of anger,” she said. “I feel very naive. I’m not educated with any of this. I hope, as American citizens, we can learn from this.”

“It does put things into perspective,” said another tour group member, Anne O’Reilly, an acupressure specialist from Costa Mesa. “You see (the film) ‘Silkwood’ and everything, but if you can’t see it (experience it), it doesn’t exist.”