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RE: Yesterday's CSI episode (TV)

Title: Yesterday's CSI episode (TV)
To Jaroslav and all who wants to share TV innacuracies with us,
 
I am pleased that you feel the need to share an observation from a TV show with us but the only good it makes is to show how TV is only a impression of reality. Sure we would like to see TV show 100% accurate but it is unlikely to happen as reality may not sell enough or make good audience. (I am still waiting for  TV show about life and intrigues in an engineering firm...)
 
Now you are an expert in the nuclear industry or Health Physics and you find innacuracies annoying ?
 
Imagine how many innacuracies a lawyer would get in Ally McBeal, LA law etc. and YOU don`t perceive.  Imagine how funny a movie like "BackDraft" is for firemen (The guy entering a blaze with his bunker suit wide-open...) or how basic is that  "Atomic Train" movie for a HAZMAT person (the first crew is arriving on the scene with the wind blowing in their faces) etc.
 
The only thing we can do as professionnals is to take good notes of these exemples to illustrates the need for proper training and information when we need to carry a message across in radiation safety. Personnally, I use these exemples as exercises during rad safety training for our researchers , the exemples are original, glamorous (like Hollywood !) and people enjoy telling what is wrong with this picture (clip or movie !!!)
 
By now, I thought that we would be used with such representation of reality by Hollywood ...
 
My opinion only.

Stéphane Jean-François, Eng., CHP,
Spécialiste en radioprotection-Radiation Safety Specialist
Gestion des risques-Risk Management
Merck Frosst Canada et Cie,
514.428.8695
Fax:514.428.8670
stephane_jeanfrancois@merck.com
http://www.merckfrosstlab.ca

-----Original Message-----
From: Jacobus, John (OD/ORS) [mailto:jacobusj@ors.od.nih.gov]
Sent: Monday, July 22, 2002 8:35 AM
To: 'RadSafe'
Subject: FW: Yesterday's CSI episode (TV)

Hey, guys.  This is a TV show that is intended to entertain and sell products to the viewers.  If you have an issue with the authenticity of the material, you should write to the sponsors and say you will not buy their SUV, beer, etc., because they are not accurately portray the monitoring uranium contamination.  Goodness.  This line of thought is as bad as the West Wing discussion. 
 
Get a grip on it.

-- John

John Jacobus, MS, CHP
Area Health Physicist
Radiation Safety Branch
National Institutes of Health
21 Wilson Drive, MSC 6780
Bethesda, MD  20892-6780
USA
Telephone:  301-496-5774
Fax: 301-496-3544
E-mail:  jjacobus@mail.nih.gov
         jacobusj@ors.od.nih.gov

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Nicolosi [mailto:jfnicolosi@tds.net]
Sent: Saturday, July 20, 2002 10:56 AM
To: Franta, Jaroslav; Radsafe (E-mail); multiple (E-mail)
Subject: Re: Yesterday's CSI episode (TV)

I had the same problems you did..also had problem with CDV survey probe...it looked like he was surveying with the GM tube completely shielded...Jim Nicolosi, Knoxville, TN
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, July 19, 2002 1:29 PM
Subject: Yesterday's CSI episode (TV)

Yesterday evening's episode of CSI (Crime Scene Investigators) on the local network channel here in Montreal, featured a story involving uranium detection at the crime scene -- tiny flakes of paint from a little statue which was used as the murder weapon.

I thought that a somewhat positive aspect of the show was how the investigator's initial panic reaction became moderated. Unfortunately it only became so as a result of the lab-tech's explaining that it was just "trace amounts of uranium" ....as if a brick of 100% pure uranium would kill you on the spot (or something like that -- who knows what the story writers were thinking...).

Another minus was when the investigator exposed a film to some more uranium paint flakes taken from the murderer's gloves -- the film was exposed in a matter of seconds, showing bright specs of light on the print.

All I managed to get after exposing dental x-ray film to a 1-inch piece of high-grade uranium ore for about 8 hours, was a diffuse silhouette of the rock :-(

Pretty entertaining show nonetheless.... one of very few TV programs I bother watching.

Jaro 


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