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cpm of radioactive roaches
Found the roach reference: Harold Marcus (Albert Einstein College of
Medicine of Yeshiva University, Bronx, New York), A Mobile Source of
Radiation – Contaminated Cockroaches, Health Physics, Vol. 45(6),
1983:1053-1054). A few sentences from the short Letter:
”...roaches labelled with 32P-emitting dose rates of 20,000 to several
100,000 cpm scurrying across lab benches...wooden panel to which the soap
dispenser was attached had been removed. On the back of the board, there was
a count rate of 250,000 cpm coming from a layer och roach excreta... Some
hours after the incident, the laboratory technician was able to capture an
adult roach which emitted 300,000 cpm at its surface... The instrumentation
used... Eberline Portable Gas Proportional survey meter, model PAC-4G with
beta probe having a 0.85 mg/cm2 window. The probe gives one a detecting area
of 60 cm2 making it easy to follow a roach in flight”. I wonder what part of
medicine the lab was doing (microbiology is usually about smaller
organisms).
Regarding the last sentence of the quotation: I doubt that I could have
followed a few of the large roaches that I saw at the SUNY HSC at Brooklyn a
few years ago – they were very fast in flight. I read somewhere that the
Combat spray can (anti roach stuff) is sold to a value of 11 million USD/yr
(around 1996) in NY City alone (and remember that many other traps and
poisons also are used).
My personal reflections only – time to sleep in Sweden,
Bjorn Cedervall bcradsafers@hotmail.com
http://www.geocities.com/bjorn_cedervall/
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