Alarms over radiation from thyroid cancer patients

Alarms over radiation from thyroid cancer patients

Cancer patients sent home after treatment with radioactive iodine have contaminated hotel rooms and set off alarms on public transportation, a congressional investigation has found.

They've come into close contact with vulnerable people, including pregnant women and children, and the household trash from their homes has triggered radiation detectors at landfills.

...

"There is a strong likelihood that members of the public have been unwittingly exposed to radiation from patients," Markey wrote Wednesday in a letter to the NRC that details findings by his staff. "This has occurred because of weak NRC regulations, ineffective oversight of those who administer these medical treatments, and the absence of clear guidance to patients and to physicians."

This is a rather surprising issue.

The article gives these other examples:

- A patient who had received a dose of radioactive iodine boarded a bus in New York the same day, triggering radiation detectors as the bus passed through the Lincoln Tunnel heading for Atlantic City, N.J., a casino Mecca. After New Jersey state police found the bus and pulled it over, officers determined that the patient had received medical instructions to avoid public transportation for two days, and ignored them. The 2003 case highlighted that NRC rules don't require patients to stay off public transportation.

- About 7 percent of outpatients said in the survey they had gone directly to a hotel after their treatment, most of them with their doctors' knowledge. Hotel stays are a particular concern, since the patient can expose other guests and service workers. In 2007, an Illinois hotel was contaminated after linens from a patient's room were washed together with other bedding. The incident would probably have gone unreported but for nuclear plant workers who later stayed in the same hotel and set off radiation alarms when they reported to work.

I had no clue.

Well, it certainly demonstrates we have some sensitive sensors lying around.

Does anyone happen to know whether secondary exposure at these levels are really dangerous?

Fascinating article.

reply to post by loam


One thing the article doesn't mention is the threat to fertile women. Eggs don't really repair themselves from radiation damage.

As far as radiation in general, the medical community has been going waaay overboard in exposing people to radiation as of late. I personally know someone who received a CT scan overdose and she looked like a Hiroshima survivor with the red patches and hair falling out. At first doctors thought it was stress or a skin disease but when the media broke the story, the hospital started sending letters explaining the radiation overdose.

It looks like zapping people is widely accepted, i just wonder if hospitals know the difference between treatment and real harm.

G'Day All,

Very alarming to say the least, I am here in Australia and wondering what our statistics are, would be a little less but up there all the same. I am now seriously thinking about buying a radiation meter now, surely explains why people that don’t smoke don’t drink, and live healthy lives get cancer. The world is totally insane.

reply to post by loam


You have to stop being so funny, loam.

[S&F]

And don't forget:

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