Re: Article: High Security Trips Up Some Irradiated Patients,Doctors Say

[Muckerheide <muckerheide@attbi.com>]

There are increasing numbers of such cases, including the Washington METRO.

(Ruth is right that there is no obvious "scanning," but security people ride

the METRO with monitoring devices just as reported here in the much more

challenging case of monitoring people in motor vehicles.)



If we are intelligent, we would use this new public awareness and reporting

of these incidents to communicate to the public that 100s of millions of

medical patients (those in general good health) get radiation doses hundreds

to thousands of times greater than the self-serving limits set by gov't for

"radiation protection," with no adverse effects. (The medical literature

reports such exposures as "safe," with the WB dose from I-131 hyperthyroid

therapy variously reported as from 10 to 25+ rem, while EPA's "limit" for

natural radioactivity in drinking water is 4 mrem per year.)  And we need to

explain that we could stop the loss of billions of dollars if we could stop

the false claims of "risk" that are used to justify these costly "radiation

protection" limits in accordance with such well-known actual risks in actual

people, especially if we identify the enormous un-met needs for health and

medical safety and alternative applications that could use the funds to save

lives instead of costing lives.



Thanks.

Regards, Jim Muckerheide

Mass. State Nuclear Engineer

Radiation, Science, and Health

Center for Nuclear Technology and Society at WPI

http://cnts.wpi.edu/rsh/docs/



on 12/4/02 1:05 PM, Bruce Bugg at obbugg@dmvs.ga.gov wrote:



> In our hazmat transportation enforcement efforts, about 12 years ago we

> acquired some scintillation probes (Plastic scintillators, to avoid NaI

> thermal shock problems), hooked them into alarming count rate meters, and

> mounted them in patrol cars. Over the past several years, I have pulled over

> three thyroid patients just coming home from the hospital.

> 

> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

> Capt. Bruce Bugg

> Special Projects Coordinator

> Law Enforcement Division

> Georgia Department of Motor Vehicle Safety

> P.O. Box 80447 

> Conyers, GA  30013-8047

> voice:    678.413.8825

> fax:    678.413.8832

> e-mail:    obbugg@dmvs.ga.gov



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