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RE: irradiated mail
Similarly related would the sanitation of the mail in DC have any adverse
impacts on mail containing a CD, ie, would irradiation make the CD
unreadable to the recipients computer?
Thanks,
randy
Re the government report that suggests that radiation may have caused
some chemical changes in paper, which then produces skin irritation.
High-wet-strength hard-surface paper is produced by the "kraft" process
("Kraft" is the German word for "strength"), in which the lignins are
removed from wood using organic reduced sulfur compounds -- sulfides related to
H2S. The sulfides are responsible, incidentally, for the noxious odor from
kraft pulp mills. Paper pulp is wood with the lignins removed.
White paper is bleached with chlorine dioxide or related oxidizing
compounds. Low-wet-strength paper, like a lot of cardboard (and egg
cartons, and the center roll for paper towels and toilet paper) is produced by a
process that uses sulfites (SO3-) and removes lignins an oxidative rather than a
reducing process.
Alphas would almost certainly react with organic
sulfide residues, but I expect the irradiation of mail would be gamma or x-ray,
not alpha, if you are going to kill anthrax bacteria. Gammas would also
react with organic sufides as well as with the cellulose in the paper
itself, but I doubt if enough irritant would be produced to cause a
physiological effect. I did my dissertation work in this area, and we had to
really zap a small molecule to detect any chemical change at all.
The irradiation that produces color changes in crystals is
appreantly not enough to produce chemical changes that can be detected without
instrumentation.
X-rays produce chemical changes in photographic
film, and might produce some ancillary changes that could cause irritation, but
I don't know that x-ray technicians complain about irritation. Xerox is a
chemical process that leaves a discernible residue (so does ink, for that
matter) and I don't know of generalized complaints about chemical irritation
from either. If x-rays or gamma radiation were producing an irritant in
paper products, wouldn't that irritant be different for white paper, colored
paper, cardboard, Xeroxed labels, handwritten envelopes, black ink, and colored
inks? I'd like to see a double-blind experiment where mail handlers handle
unirradiated mail that they think has been irradiated, and irradiated mail that
they think hasn't been irradiated.
Ruth
Ruth Weiner, Ph.
D.
ruthweiner@aol.com
Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.
ruthweiner@aol.com