Replies

This means that, at the distance from the US to Japan, if there were any radiation levels high enough to cause harm to US persons, the radiation levels in Japan would be high enough to render Japan completely lifeless.

One last consideration might be the fallout of radioactive particles thrown into the air. To an extent, the concentration of radioactive particles obeys the inverse-square law.

That first only holds for ionizing radiation. Any particles produced function themselves as point sources, with their own new distance, where they are distributed. That distribution follows wind and other patterns. There is NO remote "to an extent" that the radioactive particles were deposited in circular lines of equal density thousands of miles from Japan. At best they would be in highly eccentric ellipses.

You can't really argue that particles didn't arrive in the US or that the US isn't a likely place for particulate from Japan to go. But what these guys are trying to do is show causation, and that's where they're totally irresponsible and can be destroyed for it (arguing about proximity lets them beg the question that the particles, once proximate, actually are dangerous). And in my midnight, late-for-bedtime laziness, I'm referencing UpToDate rather than your PubMed search earlier. =)

390 picocuries per liter of water in Boise. Compare this with the fixed-dose options for radioiodine for Grave's disease of 5, 10, or 15 millicuries. This will induce hypothyroidism in 12-18 weeks (yet they cite CDC statistics for 0 to just 14 weeks). And even this has a potential failure rate. Sure iodine is concentrated in the thyroid, but if you took just the 5 mCi pill and distributed it in 40 liters of body water, you're looking at 125,000 picocuries. They're nowhere close, and how many liters of their koolaid would you have to drink to get there?

If 14,000 more people were dying from myxedema coma, the news would be all over it...

There is NO remote "to an extent" that the radioactive particles were deposited in circular lines of equal density thousands of miles from Japan.

I do realize that the analogy is somewhat limited, but it was good enough for the point I wanted to make, which is that any particles small enough to become airborne and travel for long distances will end up being quite dispersed. Of course, there are a number of forces acting on particles that simply don't have an effect on radiative emissions.