Deposition of Fallout Cesium 137
on Forage and Transfer to Milk
GERALD M. WARD, Ph.D., JAMES E. JOHNSON, Ph.D., and DANIEL W. WILSON, M.S.
Public Health Reports
Vol. 81, No. 7, July 1966
CESIUM 137 is one of the most important
contaminants from fallout nuclear debris
because of its long physical half-life and affinity
for biological systems. Body burdens of this
radionuclide in man result principally from the
food-chain sequence: air and precipitation to
plants, plants to milk and meat, with dairy and
beef cattle as the principal vectors between
plants and man's diet. This apparently simple
relation describes the food-chain pattern for
cesium 137 quite adequately since uptake of
cesium 137 by plants from soil is negligible (1)
and dairy products and beef contribute most of
the cesium 137 in the average U.S. diet (2)....
