RE: Article from Washington Post: Plant Hid Risk From Workers

["Neil, David M" <neildm@id.doe.gov>]

Remember, this is a journalist we're talking about. To them "highly
radioactive plutonium" is one word.  I wonder how they would feel if
physicists talked about "highly toxic ink"?  (Up to a few years ago,
newsprint ink was heavy metal based. Lead, if I recall correctly.)

[Sarcasm on] As with most of the folks who protest about radiation, they are
blissfully unaware of the concept of specific activity and its inverse
proportionality to half-life, and got their concepts of radiation effects at
the drive-in  watching such classics as " 'Radioactive Slavegirls from
Planet X' with Pelvis Parsley singing 'Blue Cerenkov'." The journalism
students I knew in high school and college had flunked in science and had no
athletic ability. [Sarcasm off]
Dave Neil		neildm@id.doe.gov

"There's no dumbass vaccine."  --   James William Buffett

On Thursday, December 23, 1999 9:51 AM, Weiner, Ruth
[SMTP:rfweine@sandia.gov] wrote:
> Please, what is "highly radioactive plutonium (and neptunium)?" The only
> isotope of Pu that could be considered "highly radioactive" that would
> around long enough to expose workers at Paducah would be Pu241 (t 1/2 =
13.2
> years, which I doubt would be that prevalent in small or trace amounts of
> plutonium. Similarly, the isotope of Np that would qualify would be Np-235
> (t 1/2 = 1.12 years), which is also pretty rare.
> 

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