RE: Good Morning America

[scherer@uiuc.edu (David Scherer)]

>Nor, in fact, did she say anything about instant death.  She said that
>inhalation of an amount the size of a head of a pin will cause death.
>Instant?  No.  Just death.
>
>Has anyone bothered to do the volume to density to activty to dose calculation?
>
OK, here goes.  I'll use Pu-239 data for simplicity.  A volume of 1 mm3 has
an activity of 45 MBq.  Using ICRP 30 DCFs, the committed dose to the bone
surface is several million rem (9E6 rem for Class W, 4E6 rem for Y).  The
committed efffective dose equivalent is about an order of magnitude lower.

I'm not sure how big the pin head in question is, but internal dosimetry
isn't that accurate anyway.

Dave Scherer
scherer@uiuc.edu