Radiation Answers

Radiation Myths

We are not dying from radiation exposure as some would lead us to believe. We need to question what we read and hear. When we read that someone died or has cancer and it is “suspected” or “assumed” to be from the person using a cell phone, receiving a chest x ray, or living in a state with a nuclear power plant, we simply cannot believe this information at face value. We havemade it too easy to blame something with no evidence to support the claim. We want to be able to blame something when a loved one gets sick. Sometimes we can, but more often it is too complex to point to only one issue.

That is when we need to try hard not to fall to hearsay, rumor, and gossip. Sometimes it’s hard to decide whom we should believe so it is easiest to believe the person or peoplewho say things we already agree with. If we never did like that nuclear power plant being built one county away from us, then it is easy to blame that plant for everything that goes wrong. If the plant isn’t to blame, then we spend a lot of time and money (and increase our dislike of the plant) without coming to a solution on the issue.

We’re calling this section “Separating Myth from Reality.”The idea is to take some recent and some old myths or news items and discuss the issues. We will continue to expand this area as items about radiation protection or radiation hazards come into the news, so check back often.

Separating Myth from Reality
“A two-month-old infant was put through an x-ray scanning machine at the airport; infant rushed to hospital to prevent radiation poisoning.”Yes, this did happen; we are not making it up. A two-month-old infant was put on the conveyer and was screened by the x-ray unit that is usually looking at carry-on luggage. When the operator of the unit saw the outline of the infant, the x rays were turned off. The amount of radiation exposure the infant could have received, at the most, would barely be the same as what we receive daily fromnatural background radiation (about 0.001 rem)—at least 100,000 times lower than what might even cause the infant to get sick. What was worse for the infant in this case was the ambulance travel (possible accident) and the needle sticks at the hospital to obtain blood and other body samples to see if the radiation caused any effects.

“Coming soon to an airport near you—machines with x-ray visionthat can see right through you.”

You may have thought the metal detector you had been walking through at the airport all this time was exposing you to radiation. It wasn’t, but now there is a next generation of screening detectors for people to walk through that does expose us to radiation. The amount of radiation to which we are exposed (0.00001 to 0.0002 rem per scan) is much lower than whatwe receive daily from natural background radiation (about 0.001 rem).

“The cow had two heads as a result of radiation releases from the local nuclear power plant.”

This is the type of claim we can never formally prove right or wrong, even though it wouldn't be true. People might say things like “The cow is here and the nuclear plant is over there. What else do we need to know?” There is noscientific evidence to suggest that radiation exposure would cause a two-headed cow.

We might think that radiation does some odd things because of television and comics. Some favorites are Spiderman® and the Hulk®. If you don’t know the story of the Incredible Hulk, here is the introduction to him taken from the comics: “While for most of the population, exposure to gamma radiation results indeath, there are a few select individuals where exposure can allow the person to develop super-human abilities. In the Marvel® Universe, a resulting gamma mutation due to the exposure to gamma radiation is determined by psychological as well as physiological causes.” Spiderman is similar in that his superhuman powers were the result of being bitten by a radioactive spider.

These ideas are great...