Posted on 12/21/2013 4:20:53 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Capt. Burke: "To put this into perspective, the maximum radiation dose received was equalt to the amount of natural background radiation one would receive in one month from sources such as rocks, soil and the sun.”
= "CYA"
I believe the government took appropriate precautions against radioactivity for all military personnel related to the nuclear weapons tests of the Cold War, has the well-being of soldiers in-theater when drafting ROE, does its best to responsibly spend our tax dollars and will provide for my health & well-being until my natural death. </sarc>
GREAT post.
Did you forget your </sarc> tag???
From 1961: Effects of Inhaled Radioactive Particles
And if there's any doubt about 50+ years of data analysis:
From US EPA, Radiation Protection - Exposure Pathways
Inhalation Exposure by the inhalation pathway occurs when people breathe radioactive materials into the lungs. The chief concerns are radioactively contaminated dust, smoke, or gaseous radionuclides such as radon. What happens to inhaled radioactive materials?
Radioactive particles can lodge in the lungs and remain for a long time. As long as it remains and continues to decay, the exposure continues. For radionuclides that decay slowly, the exposure continues over a very long time.
Inhalation is of most concern for radionuclides that are alpha or beta particle emitters.
Alpha and beta particles can transfer large amounts of energy to surrounding tissue, damaging DNA or other cellular material. This damage can eventually lead to cancer or other diseases and mutations.
Thank you sir.
The latency period for radiation-induced leukemia is 5 to 7 years, and for solid tumors its 10 years or more.
Follow the money on this one. This is just another trial lawyer playing on people's mistrust of government and ignorance of health physics to try to cash in on the TEPCO settlement.
Back in the 90’s there was a 2 hour documentary I saw on TV that showed tons of video footage of people swimming and on deck and on the islands right after the explosion near Bikini Island. Guys said they were keeping stuff from the explosion as souvenirs. Men and women hanging out their laundry and they were positioned as guinea pigs intentionally. Ironic as they showed advertizements played at movies in USA that asserted that no one would be in harms way and that the utmost was being done in terms of safety to the American public. In the interviews of a few people remaining alive - one guy with no arms or legs told of almost everyone on his ship dying early and gruesome deaths. Everyone can come to there own conclusions but I hate to say the people are seen as expendable. Another example from WWII is Operation Keelhaul. That is a huge black eye for the US and has thus never been acknowledged or talked about nor will it.
I live on the West Coast and have done volumes of research for my health and that of my family.
Without regard to 'journalistic accuracy', I err on the side of the sick sailors in this case.
The effects of radiation are well-known; it's easy to 'arm-chair' this one, but I won't permit my health to be relegated to corporate & government cya.
Opinions vary; I hope you're right and their maladies aren't resultant/actionable, but they were in a fallout cloud...there's no denying that.
“the massive ship, whose desalination system pulled in seawater that was used for drinking, cooking and bathing.”
I don’t know all the facts either, but this doesn’t sound good. Were people on board contaminated from the ship’s water supply? EVERYBODY uses the water. Showers, laundry, food preparation, cleaning, not to mention drinking it. If yes, the whole darn ship is contaminated, as in “swab them decks matey”.
No, and I did not intend one, either.
Your body reacts *exactly* the same way to a radioactive particle as it would to a non-radioactive particle of the same chemical composition and physical structure. As for how the radiation itself affects the body, there are various caveats, such as what is the nature of the emission (beta, alpha, or gamma), what the energy of the emission is, and the quantity of radioactive material. Your body has redundant repair mechanisms for repairing damaged DNA, and a low dose exposure to radiation will not overwhelm those repair mechanisms. When those mechanisms are overwhelmed, the affected cells suicide (scientists call the process "programmed cell death" or "apoptosis"). At the point where cells are being overwhelmed is where the danger zone is: because not every cell with damaged DNA dies, and there is a higher chance of incorrect repairs when there is a lot of DNA damage. People who have this level of radiation exposure also have mild symptoms, like a sunburn. I won't get into what happens at higher doses of radiation exposure, since there is no reason to think that those 17 exposed sailors had even a minimally risky dose.
You might enjoy reading about the banana equivalent dose. Bananas carry radioactive potassium, which is spread throughout your body and incorporated into your cells whenever you eat a banana. I find the banana equivalent dose discussion a good overview of the issues of low-dose radiation exposure. Sometimes I joke that I haven't received my daily requirement of radiation, so I must eat a banana.
At any rate, west coast US already being affected. Thyroid issues, dogs dieing from heart maladies and the sky has a slight silver cast. The deep blue is gone.
And the birds are almost gone.
I don’t know you but I sincerely hope you are not involved in emergency management on the west coast or, for that matter, any other area subject to possible radiological emergencies.
I...am...without...words.
Some years ago I had a cat that developed hyperthyroidism. The medications the vet gave her didn’t work so I took her in for very expensive radioactive iodine therapy – which by the way did work. I dropped her off in the morning and picked her up the next afternoon.
When I came to pick her up I was given a lengthy list of instructions which I had to not only read but also sign.
Among the instructions were to avoid any prolonged contact with the cat – no petting or letting her sit on my lap, to keep her in a closed off room isolated from other pets and small children for the next 48 hours, to obtain a disposable cardboard litter box and not to handle any feces or urine without rubber gloves or to flush any contents down the toilet (this was IIRC, an EPA regulation) but to use rubber gloves and a plastic garbage bag to dispose of the box and all its contents and dispose of them in the trash.
After I read through all this, I looked at the gal in horror and asked “Just how radioactive is my cat? And she just laughed. She told me that the NRC and the EPA mandated that I had to be given these instructions and precautions.
She said, “Your cat has only very miniscule amounts of residual radiation left over from yesterdays’ procedure. You would be exposed to more radiation from eating a banana than from petting your cat right now.” And in fact she showed me her radiation alarm badge while she picked up my cat and it didn’t’ register anything, and that in all her many years of working there and handling the cats during and right after their radio iodine therapy, that her radiation badge had never gone off.
But she told me that just the week before, she had left work to pick up her daughter at a tanning salon and that she forgotten that she was still wearing her radiation badge. She said that as soon as she walked in the place, it went off for the first time in years.
To be fair, if I am in a situation where I must set up and run a triage/treatment/decontamination area for dealing with radiological casualties, I probably don't want someone around who is prone to histrionics over the possibility of a low dose radiation exposure. I would much rather deal with people who actually understand the effects of radiation at various doses, and who can keep calm in a tense situation.
And yes, in case you are wondering, I am trained on how to deal with mass casualties, including radiologic casualties.
That is funny.
I believe that the iodine used for medicine has a very short half life, and will be completely gone within a few weeks.
Very often, the level of fear and hysteria over radiation is far more damaging to health than an actual radiation exposure. We are exposed to radiation of all kinds all the time, and we do just fine with it.
I had to get a bone scan, which involved injecting me with several millicuries of a radioactive substance. I was given a card to carry for a couple of days, just in case I set off a radiation detector somewhere. Other than that, there were no special measures.
I have a cat with thyroid disease, but we manage it with pills.
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A few years ago, because my GP didn’t like what he saw on my EKG during my annual physical, I was sent for a nuclear stress test. Fortunately I passed with flying colors but I was given no instructions or special measures to follow after the test that I can recall. The same with a nuclear thyroid test I had several years before. I certainly was not told to isolate myself from humans, small children or pets for the next 48 hours or told that I couldn’t use the toilet and rather had to bag up my pee and poo in a plastic bag. LOL! The instructions I was given for my cat was ridiculous and way over precautious as the gal from the Radiocat facility pretty much told me.
I have a cat with thyroid disease, but we manage it with pills.
We tried that with my sweet Zelda but she had a very bad reaction to the pills. After only a week of giving them to her, she broke out in sores and scabs all over her face and ears, her ears turned bright red and where hot to the touch and she lost most of her fur on her face and all the fur on her ears and she stopped eating. Not to mention the difficulty of giving her pills every day. The radioiodine therapy wasn’t exactly cheap, but then neither were the pills; but it did work and from the research I did and the advice from my vet it was IMO well worth it and a much better alternative to surgery. And she lived a very happy and healthy life and brought me much joy and love for another 10 years. The $1,200 spent worked out to be about $10 a month.
The Japanese lied through their teeth to get us there. Had we known the severity we would have never gone in with pumps. We quickly left when the dosimiters launched.
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