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FW: Who's afraid of a dirty bomb?
This is making the rounds, and may be of interest. It is good, but is
anyone listening?
-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
3050 Traymore Lane
Bowie, MD 20715-2024
E-mail: jenday1@email.msn.com (H)
-----Original Message-----
From: Dan.Miron@med.va.gov [mailto:Dan.Miron@med.va.gov]
A friend sent this to me. I thought that the group might like to read it.
Dan
Who's afraid of a dirty bomb?
© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com
As terror tension escalates, are we just scaring ourselves to death, again?
First we feared percussive plastics, then bio-fear and bugs and now comes
the fear of nuclear weapons in the hands of fanatics. More recently, the
media has been spreading stories about dirty radioactive bombs. Is this
concept even dangerous, or just another dumb dumb-bomb idea?
As radiological physicians (radiologists) we did diagnostic radiological
work for decades. We're worried that the term "radiological bomb" sometimes
used to describe these devices might catch on and demean our entire
profession. "Dirty bomb" is better but "dirty radioactive bomb" is a better
and more accurate description.
But first, we are not discussing nuclear fission or thermonuclear fusion
devices (aka atomic and hydrogen bombs) which release vast amounts of energy
from reactions in atomic nuclei - these are indeed weapons of mass
destruction. Even so, the effect of even these is limited to the immediate
area impacted - for example, a city such as Washington, D.C., and areas
downwind receiving fallout.
We are talking about the latest idea of using a chemical explosive to
disperse intensely radioactive material. The dirty radioactive bomb idea is
to set-off high explosives wrapped with highly radioactive stuff on the
outside, like a vest, so that the explosion disperses the radioactivity.
Such a device could indeed be a weapon of "mass disruption" - unless we get
a grip on the realities of radiation and the limitations of such a device.
The media and the public should not immediately panic because some papers
blowing in the wind in Afghanistan had crude sketches of crude ideas written
on them, including printouts of Internet web sites satirizing the "How to
Build a Nuclear Bomb for Fun and Profit" idea.
To meet this "threat," we need to corral some of our irrationally exuberant
fears about radiation. Too much ionizing radiation can indeed kill you, just
as too much aspirin can kill you. And, like aspirin, low doses of
radioactivity can enhance human health. Remember, human beings have always
lived in a world pervaded by low levels of ionizing radiation. And once
radioactivity (like aspirin) is diluted enough, it has no effect.
And remember, terrorists have problems too. For example, building and
handling such dirty radioactive bombs is a risky venture for the wannabe
terrorists who might get fried by radiation before they deliver their
payload.
In an interview with us, John Toman, former Nuclear Test Group director at
the Nevada Test Site for testing nuclear devices, said the radioactive
material itself, if intense enough, might generate enough heat to cause the
chemical explosives to ignite prematurely, truncating both the mission and
the terrorists' lives. According to Toman, adequate shielding around an
intensely radioactive device could cause it to be the size and weight of the
15,000 pound "daisy cutter" bomb used in Afghanistan. This could not be
packed in a suitcase and, lacking your own personal B-52, would be difficult
to deliver.
In a telephone interview, James Muckerheide, president of Radiation, Science
and Health, Inc. <http://cnts.wpi.edu/rsh/> , and Massachusetts state
nuclear engineer compares the dirty radioactive bomb concept with the
results of the very wide dispersal of a huge amount of radioactivity from
the disastrous accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power reactor in the former
Soviet Union. That reactor failed because it did not have many of the
safeguards routinely included in nuclear power reactors outside communist
countries. The Chernobyl accident released thousands of times more
radioactivity than any conceivable dirty radioactive bomb.
Last June, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic
Radiation reviewed the Chernobyl accident
<http://www.unscear.org/chernobyl.htm> at a conference in Kiev, Ukraine.
According to Muckerheide, the UNSCEAR report found that "not a single member
of the public was killed by the Chernobyl accident" despite the dispersal of
a much larger amount of radioactivity than is conceivable from a dirty
radioactive bomb. Of three cases of fatal thyroid cancer, two afflicted
people received so little radiation that scientists concluded that Chernobyl
radiation was not a factor, and a third person died because of inadequate
treatment.
Muckerheide notes: "It's a whole lot easier to kill people with shrapnel
from a high explosive than it is to kill people with radioactivity dispersed
by a high explosive device." Any radioactivity scattered by a dirty
radioactive bomb could be readily and safely cleaned up with
well-established techniques.
Most all of these doomsday scenarios are science fiction, as are the
fictitious scares released by people seeking attention and power.
And whatever you do, please don't call the dirty radioactive bomb a
"radiological" bomb. That would hurt the feelings of a lot of people -
including us and 20,000 other radiological physicians!
Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., of Newport Beach, Calif., writes extensively on
medical, legal, disability and mental health reform. Robert J. Cihak, M.D.,
of Aberdeen, Wash., is the immediate past president of the Association of
American Physicians and Surgeons. Both doctors are Harvard trained
diagnostic radiologists. Collaborating as The Medicine Men, they write a
weekly column for WorldNetDaily as well as numerous articles and editorials
for newspapers, newsletters, magazines and journals nationally and
internationally.
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