Cancer causing 'Hot Particles' detected in Seattle
Arnie Gunderson says that people in Fukishima were breathing in 10 'Hot Particles' per day which only decreased to 5 'Hot Particles' per day in Seattle. 'These 'Hot Particles' can lodge in your lung, digestive tract or bones and over time can cause cancers.' He states that they are too small to be detected on a large radiation detector.
http://fairewinds.com/content/cnns-john-king-interviews-arnie-gundersen-...
Have you been detecting these 'Hot Particles' in your area?
Are your detectors 'large radiation detectors' and therefore 'Hot Particles' would be part of your 'Minimum Detectable Activity' and not be detected? If so, is your MDA and statements of 'non-detection' misleading in that 'Hot Particles' are detectable but just not by the equipment you are using, therein misleading the public into thinking the danger from radioactive fallout is no longer existent? If you have been detecting the 'Hot Particles' why have you not reported them.
If you have reported these 'Hot Particles' please post the link.
Very cheerful, but did not
Very cheerful, but did not add much to my understanding of the Pu/U inhalation.
I really want to see some data on these damned nano-particles.
One thing I would like to add - I think that one key factor in the lethality of said nanoparticles could be their size - ie, a larger particle pumps out more radiation = more bad news.
I assume your correct about
I assume your correct about the size of these particles playing a large role. I guess an aerosol would be absorbed at a higher rate therefore distributed more widely throughout the body. I'm wondering if studies done after Chernobyl addressed this question? It seems like there are infinite factors that play a role in uptake.
"In 1957, studies were undertaken on uptake by the body and retention after direct inhalation of plutonium in the radioactive cloud after detonation as well as after inhalation of plutonium resuspended by wind action following its deposition on the ground (stannard, 1973a). Rats and dogs were exposed during passage of the radioactive cloud, while dogs, sheep and burros were exposed for a long post-event period of up to 160 days at several down-wind locations. The result indicated that dogs exposed to the cloud passage at the time of detonation had higher plutonium burdens than animals exposed to resuspended plutonium for long periods of time, even though the animals exposed to the passing cloud were not exposed to the highest airborne concentrations at ground level."
Still working through
Still working through it...taking notes. It does get a little vague when discussing inhalation of plutonium. I found this particularly interesting:
Plutonium was found to be so poorly taken up from the gastrointentinal tract that only .007 per cent of an orally administered amount was absorbed. Of that which was absorbed, 65 percent was deposited in the skeleton. Removal from the skeleton was very slow (hamilton, 1947)
And this:
A method of protection from plutonium toxicity was proposed by Copp et al. 1947, who suggested that where contaminattion had occured, the diet could be altered to dimineralize the skeleton. By the remineralizing the skeleton via dietary change, a protective layer of new bone would be laid down over the plutonium.
The doses they used were so
The doses they used were so brutal:
For Strontium-90: 0.05-5 µCi/g (1850-185,000 Bq/g)
[1,850,000-185,000,000 Bq/Kg]
For Cesium-137: 1.65-4.31 mCi/Kg (61,050,000-159,470,000 Bq/Kg)
They also say that plutonium has a high toxicity, but a low hazard ranking. Really?
I was just wondering the
I was just wondering the same thing and came across this statement in another report - "Plutonium has a low solubility in water and biological fluids and tends to be nonmotile in soils and other media. Hence, plutonium is much less likely to move through food chains to man than fission products discussed heretofore."
In regards to its
In regards to its uptake:
Plutonium was found to be so poorly taken up from the gastrointentinal tract that only .007 per cent of an orally administered amount was absorbed. Of that which was absorbed, 65 percent was deposited in the skeleton. Removal from the skeleton was very slow (hamilton, 1947)
DR- Thanks, looks like
DR-
Thanks, looks like another fun read. I will post further when I read it all.
BC
Careful...let's not jump to
Careful...let's not jump to conclusions. This is dated from the mid 70's. I'm still scanning PDF's trying to find a more recent report.
My grandfather was a uranium miner...died of lung cancer....
onclusions About the Uranium Miners
The Advisory Committee concludes that an insufficient effort was made by the federal government to mitigate the hazard to uranium miners through early ventilation of the mines, and that as a result miners died. The Committee further concludes that there were no credible barriers to federal action. While national security clearly provided the context for uranium mining, our review of available records reveals no evidence that national security or related economic considerations were relied on by officials as a basis for not taking action to ventilate the mines. Since most of the mines were not ventilated, the federal government should at least have warned the miners of the risk of lung cancer they faced by working underground. We recognize that the miners had limited employment options and might have felt compelled to continue working in the mines, but the information should have been available to them. Had they been better informed, they could have sought help in publicizing the fact that working conditions in the mines were extremely hazardous, which might have resulted in some mines being ventilated earlier than they were.
The court in the Begay decision did not exaggerate when it called the abuse of these miners "a tragedy of the nuclear age."
http://www.hss.doe.gov/healthsafety/ohre/roadmap/achre/chap12_2.html
FINALLY someone else read
FINALLY someone else read through the report. I've been scanning through documents left and right...thank god for the freedom of information act! I'm actually surprised this hasn't been mentioned before.