Re: Radiopharmaceutical patient release

[xat@inel.gov (Alden Tschaeche)]

ASOLUTION8@aol.com wrote:
  Would you want to sit right next to
> someone (on a bus, subway, airplane, movie theater, concert, etc.) who
> received 150 mCi of iodine-131 a few hours earlier?  After all, the average
> spacing of airplane passengers is a little closer than the 1 meter assumed in
> the calculation, and the r squared factor can really up the dose.

Here we go again!  Yes, I would not mind at all sitting next to someone
who received 150 mCi of I-131 a few hours earlier, even if the seat were
on an airplane and the flight were a 14 hr. flight.  The little exposure
I would get from such a person is not a problem to me, nor should it be
to anyone, even a pregnant woman or a baby.

We knowledgeable people MUST STOP continuing the lie that a little
radiation is harmful.  Even the implication that low doses even MAY be
harmful in all circumstances does not do the public a service.  

I just had a bone scan and a MRI that gave me a TEDE of about one rem. 
I thought I knew what the outcome would be before I had the procedures
performed, and the results verified my thoughts.  So -- did I get
anything useful from the dose?  I didn't, but the doctor did.  And I
have more certainty (if such a thing is possible) than I did before of
my physical condition.  I have no problem if I need many more such
procedures.  The doses would not harm me.

Al Tschaeche  xat@inel.gov