Is Bentonite Clay supposed to be "radioactive" -Reply -Reply

[Jim Hardeman <Jim_Hardeman@mail.dnr.state.ga.us>]

Paul --

I had downloaded my e-mail first thing Monday morning but
didn't get a chance to read any until Friday afternoon on a
flight from Denver to Dallas-Fort Worth.  I read your message
and just about fell out of my seat ... I probably would have if it
hadn't been for the seat belt. The folks around me probably
thought I was nuts I was laughing so hard. I'm glad to see
that humor isn't dead in this business.

Thanks for bringing a little laughter into my day, all the while
imparting valuable info. (I had already composed a response
to the original message, but after reading yours I just did the
old "delete before sending" trick ... I knew I couldn't top
yours!)

>>> <FRAMEP@ORAU.GOV> 11/30/95 16:02 >>>

Another commonly encountered clay that shows a similar
activity is koalin, the biggest export product out of Georgia.
They used to use it in Kaopectate, in fact that's all
Kaopectate used to be- clay. (they changed the formula
some 5 years ago). We did the calculations for the state of
Georgia and found that you had to ingest about one ton of
Kaopectate per year to exceed the ALI. Obviously anyone
ingesting one ton of Kaopectate per year has more
important things to worry about than exceeding the
ALI. 

Kaolin's biggest use is in the production of glossy paper for
magazines: the pictures look better on the smooth glossy
surface. I actually ran across a Playboy magazine hidden
away here at work, cut it up on a bandsaw, put it in a
marinelli and did the analysis. Based on the activity, I
estimated that the exposure rate above background from
reading the thing was 1.5 nR/hr above background. The
annual population exposure from Playboy is about 0.5
man-rem if I remember it right. Jack Beck, whom some might
know, was visiting our place at the time. When I showed him
the analysis and spectrum, his mouth fell open and he asked
"Whats the critical organ?"