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Re: Study Raises Projection For 'Dirty Bomb' Toll
Hi all:
If a radsafe member has good figures [and a citeable reference] contradicting the
claims made by reporter Warrick about the earlier impacts of the Goaiana
accident, they should contact the W. Post's "news" editor or ombudsman [if
necessary] to force the Washington Post to run a correction of its clear error of
fact[s]. All papers have a policy of correcting direct errors of fact.
The fact that the Goaiana incident was not a group of "workers" servicing a
teletherapy unit, but a group of thieves/scavangers who were ripping apart an
abandoned teletherapy unit due to poor controls in Brazil of unused medical
equipment [at the time] alone should be corrected by the W. Post, along with the
clear errors in the number of people seriously injured.
Stewart Farber, MS Public Health
==================
1/13/04 12:41:27 PM, "Hart, Tim P GS (RASO)" <harttp@RASO.NAVY.MIL> wrote:
>
> Washington Post
> January 13, 2004
> Pg. 2
>
>
> Study Raises Projection For 'Dirty Bomb' Toll
>
> By Joby Warrick, Washington Post Staff Writer
>
>[in part]
> The researchers derived estimates of human casualties from extensive studies
> of radiation accidents, including one in 1987 in Goiania, Brazil. In that
> case, workers ruptured a capsule of highly radioactive cesium after they
> discovered it inside an abandoned radiotherapy machine. Within weeks, 249
> people suffered serious radiation injuries and five died. Many of the
> serious injuries came from internal exposure to tiny amounts of cesium that
> the victims ate or inhaled. "While the amounts ingested seem extremely
> small," the report says, "they were more than adequate to cause death or
> acute radiation sickness."
>
> Such harmful affects can be ameliorated through medical treatment, but
> treatment is possible only if the victims are aware that they've been
> exposed, the study says. It notes that many of the most troubling scenarios
> involve the quiet dispersal of contaminants -- with no explosions that
> announce the crime.
>
>
> Tim Hart
> Radiation Protection Manager
> NAVSEADET RASO
> NWS P.O. Drawer 260
>
> Yorktown, VA 23691-0260
> Commercial: (757) 887-4692
> DSN: 953-4692
> Fax: (757) 887-3235
>
>
>
> "Give me a smart idiot over a stupid genius any day." Samuel Goldwyn
>
>
>
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