[ RadSafe ] cesium

[Steven Dapra]

Feb. 16

         If an atomic bomb gets detonated I doubt that very many 
people anywhere are going to be worried about being exposed to 
radioactive cesium.

Steven Dapra


At 10:40 AM 2/16/2012, you wrote:
>I don't think I agree with some of the statements on the ATSR page.
>
>For example: "High levels of radioactive cesium in or near your body can
>cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, bleeding, coma, and even death. This
>may occur after nuclear accidents or detonation of atomic bombs."
>
>To take the second sentence first, I am hard pressed to think of a
>situation "after nuclear accidents or detonation of atomic bombs" where
>there is a chance of these kinds of symptoms in which Cs137 would be a
>major player.  Unless there was something unusual about the situation, I
>would expect that by the time the short half-life isotopes had decayed
>to the point where Cs137 dominated activity, the Cs137 would have
>dispersed to the point where acute symptoms wear not likely.  You
>certainly can get acute symptoms from exposure to Cs137, but I would
>expect exposure to a screaming hot source, rather than fallout.
>
>As for the first sentence, I'd have included at least a mention of an
>increased chance of cancer, and included some type of time factor.

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