Does Bq/L convert to mSv/year dosage?
So - in your calculations you're saying if you drink 581 liters water with 4.65 Bq/L Iodine 131 you get same dose as a typical flight from San Francisco to Washington DC and back which is approximately 5 millirem? So you would maybe drink 1 liter so it would convert to like .08 microseiverts dose from that liter? Then in milliseivert that would be .00008 milliseiverts?
Then I found online that 1 mSv (mSv is milliseivert for lay people)in a year is the "Dose Limits for planned exposure situations" by International Commission on Radiological Protection. It seems they established that as their limit in 1990 and reiterated it in 2007.
In this case could you say that - if our limit is 1 mSv per year and if we drank 1 liter of rain water with the 4.65 Bq/L Iodine - which I'm sure nobody is doing - but anyway if you did you would get .00008 of the one year safety limit?
That's also a bit difficult to conceptualize - what is that, 8 ten thousandth of a percent? I'm not really that great at math.
Are those calculations correct?


Can you compare it to bananas or radon gas instead?
I honestly am very confused by the plane flight comparison since it's like comparing the amount of light from a lightbulb with having a lightbulb inside your body.
Kudos for being confused.
Kudos for being confused. Seriously. That means you have recognized that there is an "apples to oranges comparison" going on and you are thinking about the consequences of that.
However, think not of one light bulb but instead think of one million tiny light bulbs. If they were sprayed on a wall and you face that wall, they will shine their light on the front side of your body. If instead they were absorbed into your blood stream and distributed throughout your body, their light will be spread somewhat evenly across many internal tissues. If you inhaled them they would be deposited in your lungs and while there just illuminate your lung tissues. If they all found their way to a small gland such as the thyroid, you'd have all their light concentrated in an even smaller area.
Of course, these tiny light bulbs also come in different colors! For example, the red "alpha emitter" bulbs emit light that can be blocked by dead layers of skin. Stand in front of a wall of them, no real worries. If they get into your body somehow... especially if they gravitate to one area... then you have something to worry about! Different colors of light are capable of penetrating our tissues to different degrees and the type of damage that is done is different as well.
OK, this is clearly getting very very complicated. All these details...exactly what someone is exposed to, how they are exposed, for how long, etc etc are of TREMENDOUS importance. BUT, we can't go around doing a complex analysis for everyone who is exposed to something. That is too hard... it would take too long... it would be too costly. Hmmm. How about we assign simple "weights" to the different color light bulbs, which we think are somewhat representative of the harm they can do and how about we assign "weights" to some different types of tissues which we think are somewhat representative of how sensitive the tissues are to light. Hurray! We can now do some far easier analysis to arrive at a single number that we think will to some limited extent describe the risk from different types of exposures.
A very crude analogy I admit, but that is the concept. We've all seen comparisons of apple A to orange B... these comparisons are rooted in the idea that a simple weighting scheme is sufficient to describe actual risk. People... professionals... are taught this approach and it is in wide use. Most simply accept it rather than prove its legitimacy to themselves before using it. It makes their life easier... it is a "standard approach" and if they stick to a "standard approach" they have that as an excuse if ever there is a liability claim. Others, though, truly engage in critical research and thinking and genuinely form legitimate views of their own.
How appropriate is this "standard approach"? How large is the margin of error that was created through such simplification? What is the history behind this... who created this methodology and how trustworthy are they and the process... what data supports it and what data contradicts it... how much can we rely on this approach?
That, I'm afraid, no one can answer for you. If you want, you can accept what others tell you to think. Maybe they are right. Maybe they are wrong. If you can find the time, it would however be best if you try to learn more and at least sanity check what you are being told.
The dose calculations used
The dose calculations used in ICRP, EPA, etc. are very conservative. Meaning that they have assumed a higher dose for a smaller amount of ingested material, compared to what is more likely true, in order to be safer.
The relevant FAQ is here: http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/2044#dosecompare
Also see Dan's comment on the extrapolation of radiation effects to low dose: http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/2144#comment-469
Hi, yes, your math checks
Hi, yes, your math checks out! For you or others who want more details on how to calculate dose, our calculations are explained in detail on the updated dose conversion page. There you can find factors to convert from Bq/L to microSieverts/L or whatever else you would like.
In terms of conceptualizing this... First, the 1 mSv dose limit that you are using in your comparison is already intentionally very conservative: 1 mSv = 100 millirem = 20 round-trip plane flights @ 5 millirem each. Second, you found that drinking one liter of rainwater is a very tiny fraction (0.008%) of this very conservative dose limit. This means that the risk is extremely tiny and nothing to worry over.