[ RadSafe ] Radioactive medicine being tracked through rivers

Sun Mar 25 20:57:28 CDT 2012

Is empiricism now obsolete?
Maury&Dog
=================================

On 3/25/2012 8:42 PM, Dan McCarn wrote:
> Why Jerry, you old sleuth!  Was I that transparent?
>
> Dan ii
>
> On Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 2:05 PM, Jerry Cohen<jjc105 at yahoo.com>  wrote:
>> Dan.
>> Apparently, you believe that logic and reason should play a role in radiation
>> risk perception. My goodness, what a revolutionary concept!
>> Jerry
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Dan McCarn<hotgreenchile at gmail.com>
>> To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
>> <radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu>
>> Sent: Sun, March 25, 2012 11:38:50 AM
>> Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Radioactive medicine being tracked through rivers
>>
>> Dear Brad:
>>
>> Yes, this is an enigma.
>>
>> By my calculations there are about 4-6 KCi of 222-Rn being released
>> along with progeny in the San Luis Valley, Colorado from spray
>> irrigation.  Each source from spray irrigation covers a 400 m diameter
>> circle on the ground. The release from a single one of these many,
>> many sources is greater than the radon release in an ISR (In-Situ
>> Recovery) uranium mining operation, yet no one seems to care or even
>> compare.  They are only interested in the mining, not the farming
>> release of radon.
>>
>> Dan ii
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 12:26 PM, Brad Keck<bradkeck at mac.com>  wrote:
>>> The discrepancy between what is unsafe from an industrial source (a power
>>> reactor or a lab) and what is unsafe from a medical source is of great curiosity
>>> to me.    This dichotomy persists across environmental concerns and the very
>>> roots of science and public policy.
>>>
>>> In an industrial setting, we fight every millirem and resist the release of
>>> every microcurie, yet in a medical setting, radiation doses to treat and even to
>>> PREVENT cancer  exceed those of occupational limits by orders of magnitude -
>>> these are what medical science finds to be necessary to REDUCE risk.  Releases
>>> to public sewer, vastly exceeding what industry would even contemplate are
>>> commonplace and done without a moment's thought - the very same treatment works
>>> we defend against every Bq are of course shared with the hospitals.  And,
>>> perhaps most surprisingly, the public and it's elected officials are
>>> knowledgable of and quite satisfied with this arrangement.
>>>
>>> As Stewart notes below, this has been well known and thoroughly documented for
>>> decades.  Yet, we make no progress in the arena of public perception or public
>>> policy toward an appropriate association of risk to industrial necessity nor
>>> toward some equivocation to medical practices in this regard.  Indeed we strive
>>> daily to further limit already tiny risks (If indeed risks at all) - only to
>>> widen this perception gap.
>>>
>>> If nuclear power, science and even medicine are to be relevant to a better
>>> future, this perception gap must be closed; if anyone has an understanding…….
>>> send along :}
>>>
>>> Brad Keck, PhD, CHP
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mar 23, 2012, at 1:49 PM, Stewart Farber wrote:
>>>
>>>> The issue of radioactivity in discharges by hospitals into sanitary sewers
>>>> and the contamination of sewerage plant sludge and effluents has been
>>>> discussed widely and well regognized since the 1980s.  I recall seeing a
>>>> document issued by the NRC in the late 1980s specifically on this subject.
>>>>
>>>> In 1991 the NRC modified 10CFR20 in issuing the following, which reads in
>>>> part as quoted below:
>>>>
>>>> ==========================
>>>> http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part020/part020-2003.html
>>>>
>>>> (b) Excreta from individuals undergoing medical diagnosis or therapy with
>>>> radioactive material are not subject to the limitations contained in
>>>> paragraph (a) of this section.
>>>>
>>>> [56 FR 23403, May 21, 1991, as amended at 60 FR 20185, Apr. 25, 1995]
>>>>
>>>> ================================
>>>> So a Hospital can discharge I-131 from patient excreta undergoing thyroid
>>>> ablations, each of which patient might receive 50 to 100 mCi or more.
>>>>
>>>> There is probably no major hospital in the US that does  not discharge many
>>>> multiples of 1 Curies [ 37 GBq ] of I-131. I believe there is no nuclear
>>>> plant in the US which comes close to discharging 1 Ci of I-131 either in
>>>> liquid or gaseous release.
>>>>
>>>> In the 1970s when I was involved with the Maine Yankee Radiological
>>>> Environmental Monitoring Program [REMP], this 800 MWe generating plant
>>>> airborne Tech Spec release limit for I-131 was 50 millicuries, or less than
>>>> the I-131 administered in a single thyroid ablation procedure.
>>>>
>>>> And this researcher mentioned immediately suspected when he found some
>>>> measurable I-131 that a nuclear plant must have been responsible for the
>>>> trace levels of I-131 he detected in his sediment studies. Humorous.
>>>> Apparently the Delaware academic has been listening too much to the
>>>> anti-nuke activists, who manage not just to deceive the general public with
>>>> crude manipulations of facts, but mislead scientists that one would hope
>>>> might know better. Of course when we hope for something sensible we are only
>>>> being hard on ourselves.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Stewart Farber, MS Public Health
>>>> SAFarber at optonline.net
>>>> 203-441-8433
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
>>>> [mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Dan McCarn
>>>> Sent: Friday, March 23, 2012 1:56 AM
>>>> To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List;
>>>> cs at udel.edu
>>>> Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Radioactive medicine being tracked through rivers
>>>>
>>>> Hi Roy:
>>>>
>>>> So another one of those wild&  woolly "natural scientists" gets some
>>>> insights via radioactive tracers!  Sounds interesting!
>>>>
>>>> Dan ii
>>>>
>>>> Dan W McCarn, Geologist
>>>> 108 Sherwood Blvd
>>>> Los Alamos, NM 87544-3425
>>>> +1-505-672-2014 (Home – New Mexico)
>>>> +1-505-670-8123 (Mobile - New Mexico)
>>>> HotGreenChile at gmail.com (Private email) HotGreenChile at gmail dot com
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Mar 22, 2012 at 11:34 PM, ROY HERREN<royherren2005 at yahoo.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2012/mar/medicine-rivers-sediment-032212.html
>>>>> Sediment sleuthing
>>>>> Radioactive medicine being tracked through rivers
>>>>>   10:56 a.m., March 22, 2012--A University of Delaware oceanographer has
>>>> stumbled
>>>>> upon an unusual aid for studying local waterways: radioactive iodine. Roy
>>>> Herren
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Dan ii
>>
>> Dan W McCarn, Geologist
>> 108 Sherwood Blvd
>> Los Alamos, NM 87544-3425
>> +1-505-672-2014 (Home – New Mexico)
>> +1-505-670-8123 (Mobile - New Mexico)
>> HotGreenChile at gmail.com (Private email) HotGreenChile at gmail dot com
>> _______________________________________________
>> You are currently subscribed to the RadSafe mailing list
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>> Before posting a message to RadSafe be sure to have read and understood the
>> RadSafe rules. These can be found at:
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