Re: AW: Potassium Iodide

["Richard L. Hess" <lists@richardhess.com>]

At 01:38 AM 12/20/2002 +0100, Franz Schoenhofer wrote:

>I may add - to put things into perspective - that K-40 does not emit any

>alphas, which might be shielded by polyethylene or polypropylene. K-40 is 

>an emitter of high energetic betas and high energetic gammas, which will 

>not or hardly been shielded.



Thanks for that clarification.



>But the actual dose is not the point of previous postings, as far as I

>understand them: It simply is funny, that people, who are scared of "dirty

>bombs", ridiculous potential doses from DU, tritium from exit signs, hardly

>detectable emissions from nuclear power plants etc. regard something

>radioactive (KI) as a solution for all radiation protection "problems".



The challenge, however, is that those of us who are laypersons coming to 

these issues may find information in books like Wasserman's "Killing our 

Own" who has lots of citations--but they're mostly other press reports as I 

recall.



Few people will take the time out of their lives to try and understand this 

issue to the extent that I have.



My first encounter with the dirty bomb scenario was shortly after 9-11-01 

and came from a colleague whose brother allegedly worked for the government 

and knew something and was telling my colleague that he'd share in 

outfitting my colleague's cabin-in-the-middle-of-nowhere with more decent 

full-time living accommodations, including a generator and the usual 

Rambo-gear.



The implication was that a mass evacuation of the city would be needed due 

to what the terrorists were planning...and the implication was that it was 

a dirty bomb.



I found more of this running around. Some said that there was already a 

dirty bomb in the middle of a major city.



I bought some G-M counters. They all registered pretty low.



I joined this (and other) lists trying to understand all of what was 

happening. I've stayed subscribed to this list as it continues to grab my 

interest and I appreciate all the help and friendliness directed my way. 

I've left the other lists which focused more on keeping Cold-War-era 

CDV700s running--my two run as does my Aware. They all read more-or-less 

the same on two different check sources. No more details needed.



I am now far more worried about being next to a bomb (dirty or otherwise) 

than what would happen if a dirty one went off a half mile away.



So thank you all.



However, I think everyone on this list (and I've even tried doing it) needs 

to spread the word about how much MISINFORMATION is out there. Keeping that 

knowledge to ourselves and chuckling about it is not what is needed.



Special thanks for the person who tried to tell the truth at the DU "town 

meeting" by the "ex-gov't expert"!!!! Where? in Cailfornia?



Cheers,



Richard



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