I call odd because we have just recently witnessed a spike on the Alabama Radiation monitors as reported here in this story. Which was then followed by this story, reporting a rise in radiation levels sweeping the southern states.
Also, The IV Bags in question were actually recalled on March 24th> As seems to be overlooked. This was announced during initial news conference, and can be verified here. So they Only went to the ALabama Hospitals, and they were OFFICIALLY RECALLED 6 DAYS AGO, and patients are just now reported as affected by this "virus"?
Well Okay then>
From Berkley University Forum Site:
Radiation doesn't seem to be anywhere near negligible
I spent a significant amount of time today to understand the math. To me, it seems ...like the radiation is not negligible with "no" health risk!!
And, this is just from the air contamination - not including water.
Here are the assumptions:
1. To be conservative, I have taken that we breathe 40Liters of air per minute (source).
2. I have used Effluent concentrations for air (col 1 from similar to our UCB friends) (Source)
3. I have taken the air contamination numbers provided by UCB on their website with rounding up of the contamination for ease of calculation (again little more conservative, but not off!)
4. Instead of calculating amount of radiation in terms of number of cross-country round trip flights, I converted to milliSieverts/yr so that we can compare against the radiation exposures (source)
For I-131, Cs-137, and Te-132 together, I am getting 13.15 milliSievert/yr which is more radiation than getting a full body CT-scan every year!!
All right, one will argue that I-131 will decay in just a few weeks and so this conclusion is not correct. UCB results I believe have already accounted for this. Nevertheless, even if I completely discount I-131 and Te-132 radiation impact (9.73 mSv/yr and 0.7 mSv/yr), I get 2.72 mSv/yr for Cesium alone!!
Assuming an average exposure of 6.2mSv/yr that Americans are exposed to, this is 44% more radiation!!!
Sounds serious to me!! You can put whatever spin you want, but reality sucks :-( For eg; 2 cents a minute of talk time is equivalent to 300-400 USD per year!! They are the same, but numbers can be used to divert attention!
FINALLY, I HOPE I'M WRONG, BUT I BELIEVE I AM NOT!! SOMEONE PLEASE CONVINCE ME I'M WRONG!
I spent a significant amount of time today to understand the math. To me, it seems ...like the radiation is not negligible with "no" health risk!!
And, this is just from the air contamination - not including water.
Here are the assumptions:
1. To be conservative, I have taken that we breathe 40Liters of air per minute (source).
2. I have used Effluent concentrations for air (col 1 from similar to our UCB friends) (Source)
3. I have taken the air contamination numbers provided by UCB on their website with rounding up of the contamination for ease of calculation (again little more conservative, but not off!)
4. Instead of calculating amount of radiation in terms of number of cross-country round trip flights, I converted to milliSieverts/yr so that we can compare against the radiation exposures (source)
For I-131, Cs-137, and Te-132 together, I am getting 13.15 milliSievert/yr which is more radiation than getting a full body CT-scan every year!!
All right, one will argue that I-131 will decay in just a few weeks and so this conclusion is not correct. UCB results I believe have already accounted for this. Nevertheless, even if I completely discount I-131 and Te-132 radiation impact (9.73 mSv/yr and 0.7 mSv/yr), I get 2.72 mSv/yr for Cesium alone!!
Assuming an average exposure of 6.2mSv/yr that Americans are exposed to, this is 44% more radiation!!!
Sounds serious to me!! You can put whatever spin you want, but reality sucks :-( For eg; 2 cents a minute of talk time is equivalent to 300-400 USD per year!! They are the same, but numbers can be used to divert attention!
FINALLY, I HOPE I'M WRONG, BUT I BELIEVE I AM NOT!! SOMEONE PLEASE CONVINCE ME I'M WRONG!
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