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I have problems with several points made or that were omitted from the NOVA show.
1 - They showed the patients suffering from acute radiation syndrome as a result of finding the Soviet SR RTGs, yet later showed a "demonstration" of a terrorist attack in which the dirty bomb was being driven to its destination by terrorists "already feeling the effects" of radiation sickness. The source they were purported to be carrying was a Cs-137 quantity quite large enough to kill its assemblers. Despite the obvious disabling effects of acute radiation syndrome, the terrorists were shown to be able deliver the device and detonate it as planned. I don't see any credibility in the scenario at all - a Cs-137 device able to cause the levels of contamination they described would be hundreds of curies and would easily disable the people trying to assemble and transport it. Of course it could be shielded until just before detonation, but the device would no longer be inconspicuous or readily transportable.
2 - In one of the two scenarios, the expected incidence of cancer from the bomb materials for persons in the affected area was projected at 1 in 7. Since the ambient cancer rate would be about 2 in 7, this is a predicted increase of 50% above the ambient rate. Dose rates required to accomplish such a radical increase would be extraordinary - such rates were not observed among the atomic bomb survivors.
3 - I agree that they should have mentioned the variation in natural background around the world, but doing so would have argued strongly and rationally in favor of sensible cleanup criteria and against the "every photon is a killer" idea, neither of which seemed compatible with the whole idea of doing the show in the first place. More importantly, they could have described the kinds of doses received in commonly administered nuclear medicine procedures and even demonstrated that people survive such doses as a matter of routine and a terrorist is rather unlikely to deliver such doses to the public. But that kind of story wouldn't do much for the entertainment value of the show, would it?
They got one part right - we can count on the press to sensationalize events and keep the public agitated - bad news is big business in this country and good news is unsellable. And it is an unfortunate side effect of a free press in a free market economy that the news industry also has to make a profit. So we have to expect the news that sells best, which isn't necessarily the news that's most accurate.
Bob Flood Nevada Test Site
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