EDITOR In her editorial about depleted uranium McDiarmid agrees that there is no justification for any claims of radiation induced lung cancer and leukaemia in veterans of the Gulf war.[1] She makes no mention, however, of how individual radiation doses can be measured in any screening of Gulf war and Balkan veterans.

This is important not only for veterans' peace of mind but also for medicolegal purposes. For due process of law in the courts of the United States and the United Kingdom, where some veterans are currently taking legal action for possible radiation induced illnesses, depleted uranium must first be ruled in before being ruled out if the doses are found to be too low. Global dose estimates or results of mathematical modelling are too inaccurate to be used as dose values for an individual veteran. To date no practical method has been proposed for measuring the expected small doses received by veterans.

I suggest that electron paramagnetic resonance dosimetry using tooth enamel would be an appropriate method. It has already been used after the 1986 accident at Chernobyl for some of the clean-up workers and evacuees from the 30 km exclusion zone.[2] Electron paramagnetic resonance dosimetry using tooth enamel has also been used for some of those exposed in the Techa river area and Mayak facility in the eastern Urals, where Soviet nuclear warheads were produced for many years, resulting in widespread contamination. This was reported by a group at the Institute of Metals in Ekaterinburg.[3] The research at Ekaterinburg has continued at the National Institute of Standards and Technology of the United States Department of Commerce in Gaithersburg, Maryland, to which some of the Ekaterinburg scientists have relocated.[4]

The national institute's group can now measure electron paramagnetic resonance dose estimates down to a level of 20 mSv.2 The institute is organised such that, if requested, it can undertake electron paramagnetic resonance tooth enamel dosimetry for any source, including European veterans. This was confirmed to me by the chief of the ionising radiation division at the institute (B Course, personal communication, 1999). Hence at least one centre can be incorporated into any screening programme for veterans; as the technology becomes more widely available more facilities can be expected to be suitable for this form of low level radiation dosimetry.

Richard F Mould, radiation scientist.
Sanderstead, South Croydon, Surrey CR2 0DH richardfmould@hotmail.com

Competing interests: None declared. RFM is not employed as a consultant to the National Institute of Standards and Technology; he only corresponds and exchanges academic papers with the institute. He is a consultant in radiation oncology.

 2. Mould RF. Chernobyl record: the definitive history of the Chernobyl catastrophe. Bristol: Institute of Physics Publishing, 2000:158-164.

 3. Romanyukha AA, Ignatiev EA, Degteva MO, Kozheurov VP, Wieser A, Jacob P. Radiation doses from the Ural region. Nature 1996; 381: 199-200[Medline].

 4. Desrosiers MF, Romanyukha AA. Technical aspects of the electron paramagnetic resonance method for tooth enamel dosimetry. Biomarkers: medical and workplace applications. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry, 1998:53-64.