Radiation, Lies and the Internet

First, the fine print: this blog post has nothing whatsoever to do with electricity produced from nuclear reactors. It's not really related to radiation protection or health issues. I submit to this audience only for input due to your astute critical thinking skills.

I heard in the office and then found on the 'net the news about a former Russian spy, who died suddenly of radiation poisoning under suspicious circumstances. The British investigation is expanding. I wondered what people must think, when trace amounts of radioactive material (possibly evidence of a crime, don't forget) are reason to ground 3 planes and notify 33,000 other passengers.

But while I wondered, I found this inflammatory accusation that rare, deadly material is being openly marketed to anonymous buyers on the cheap, produced on demand by an NRC-licensed US Company. And with no more information that what is in the linked article, I was alarmed, and angry, and disturbed.

How much truth is here? What does Los Alamos National Lab really say about Polonium-210? First I found that yes, LANL says "Weight for weight it is about 2.5 x 10E11 times [250 billion times] as toxic as hydrocyanic acid." And the maximum permissible body burden is an invisibly tiny amount.

"Body burden" sounds bad. (It can be. It's the hazard to person's tissues from a toxin, whether chemical or radioactive). But how is the permissible burden determined? According to Dr. Hylton Smith, biochemist and Former Scientific Secretary of the International Commission of Radiation Protection:

The maximum permissible total body burden expressed in microcuries, or the maximum permissible concentration in air or water expressed in microcuries per cubic centimetre, were intended to indicate the amount of radioactive isotope accumulated in the most heavily irradiated (critical) tissue or organ of a worker, such that the tissue or organ would receive an average dose of not more than 0.3 rem per week.

I know that it takes about 25 rem acute exposure (all at once) to produce observable changes in the body tissues (slight changes in the blood).

So: are my regulators (the NRC, charged with protecting the public health) allowing deadly quantities of this stuff to be sold indiscriminately? Of course not!!

The regulatory limit for Polonium-210 is 0.1 microCurie. Below that level, the risk to health is not considered of regulatory significance. Yes, that quantity is an invisible speck. But Polonium-210 emits alpha radiation, which is of little health concern when it's outside your skin. If you want more of the technical details, the Health Physics Society is honored to help out with this information sheet, indicating a lethal dose is at least 30 times the size of what is for sale in a check source. A quantity small enough to be legally obtained for under $100 is not lethal or even enough to produce detectable illness. And it's ignorance or a manipulative deceit - picked up and spreading across the Internet - to tell people otherwise.

If that's enough to make you lose your sense of humor, maybe this can help revive it. Particularly if you want to cure someone from stealing your coffee...




Technorati tags: Polonium, Litvinenko, Radiation