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Chemotherapy Patients Set Off Subway Alarms
dave writes "Recently, cities such as New York and elsewhere have been installing radiation detectors in subways as an anti-terror precaution. However, as reported in New Scientist, patients who are undergoing radiation treatment are setting off the alarms. From the article, "a 34-year-old patient who had been treated with radioactive iodine for Graves disease, a thyroid disorder, returned to their clinic three weeks later complaining he had been strip-searched twice in Manhattan subway stations.""
Chemotherapy is not radiation therapy!
Of particular note is that the NYT was *not* able to verify that anyone said they carrying a note from a doctor would be useful; rather, it said the police would not accept such a letter as "sole proof" that the person was not trying to pull a fast one on them, and would still conduct a full investigation.
I know that some radioactive iodine isotopes are used for thyroid treatment as a marker or for destruction of cancerous thyroid tissue. Thyroid tissue absorbs iodine and certain iodine isotopes.
There's a report on it in the New England Journal of Medicine (1998). It's not a capsule of plutonium or anything, it's a radioactive iodine. I didn't believe it myself until I saw the kind of treatment he was undergoing.
IANARO (Radiation Oncologist), but have some knowledge of this subject.
Usually Iodine-131 is given as ablation therapy for hyperthyroidism... the thyroid gland takes up the radioactive iodine (just like it takes up regular iodine) and literally burns itself out. The damage is localized because I-131 is a beta emitter. You can get the gland surgically removed as an alternative, but most people go for the pill... it's just easier. There may be specific indications for surgical removal (discrete mass, need pathology input, etc), but I could not name them.
There are other radioactive treatments for cancers... radioactive "seed" implants in prostate cancer for instance. I have never seen anyone walking around in public with them, but scanning someone being treated in that fashion might be interesting (to say the least). If airline security goons are making new mothers drink their own breastmilk (yes, I said "goons," there's no other name for someone who would do something that stupid) I can see some overzealous security folks doing a body cavity search to find the source of that "rectal radiation." I shudder at the thought of the lawsuit amount after something like that.
People undergoing chemotherapy will not set off any radiation alarms. However, from a theoretical standpoint, I can see the possibility of them setting off chemical warfare agent detectors. Please note the detectors would have to be outrageously sensitive (I don't know if it's even possible to make them that sensitive)... almost all of the chemotheraputic agents in common use are metabolic poisons of one type or another, including drugs like the nitrogen mustards (related to mustard gas). I could see someone getting some chemo solution spilled on their sleeve, and setting of somebody's chemical warfare sniffer. Someone with a little more chemical warfare experience want to comment?
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
As I recall, nuclear power plants have often gone on alert for false positives resulting from radon exposure in the home.
While the odds are slim, considering the entire length Adirondack and Appalachian mountains range from Georgia to Canada, porions of which contain significant uranium ore veins, there's going to be a considerable amount of radon gas emitted by these veins as they go through the natural process of decay. What does this mean? Inevitably, there will be false positives as well. More people will be detained, more public outcry.
On a momentary tangent, I have difficulty putting too much weight in New Scientist's journalistic integrity. For example, why haven't pacemakers set off the alarms? While they may be shielded to a certain degree for safety, I doubt that they're 100% shielded against detection.
And what of nuclear power plant employees, or students of radiological sciences in college, or radiotherapy doctors in hospitals? All of these pick up marginally higher levels of radiation in their fields, why aren't they setting off alarms either?
To ensure against repeats of that article, the police need to (at least) inform the public of the minimum level of radiation that the sensors will trip on, so that at least innocent people won't be grabbed by police, just because they were picking up an old Radium book they won in an auction online.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Don't fire alarms use radiological material?
Not fire alarms, but smoke detectors. They use a small amount of Americium in smoke detectors as well as some of those nifty advanced smoke/vapor detectors you might find in data centers. Still, I see the number of cases of people carrying smoke detectors through the subways in New York as rather small.
Depends upon the type of radiation source and the detector in use. Alpha, beta and gamma radiation are different animals and emitted by radioisotopes in different amounts.
Alpha particles are helium nucleii without electrons; beta particles are electrons; gamma radiation is electromagnetic radiation similar to X-Rays. Alpha and beta radiation are mostly stopped by inches to feet of air; gamma is more or less unaffected. Harmful doses are more complicated to assess, but basically, alpha and beta emitters are typically harmful when they get into your body and emit particles right next to cells, where they cause ionizing damage. Inserting alpha and beta emitters within a tumor is, essentially, what one form of radiotherapy does; put deadly ionizing radiation into a tumor to kill it. Radium has been an effective treatment for breast cancer (one of the first reasonably successful ones) since the 1920's.
Gamma radiation, although it passes through many feet of air and well into tissue, is not as damaging because it is not ionizing. However, high exposures have significant impacts. Gamma will pass through metals more or less unaffected.
The detectors are likely designed to pick up gamma radiation characteristic of enriched fissionable materials, because gamma passes through several feet of air. However, certain types of radiotheraputic isotopes (e.g. radium) also emit a heck of a lot of gamma.
Thus, the dilema of false positives for radiotherapy patients. If you want to pick up enriched radioisotopes, you will pick up gamma from legitimate theraputic uses. We should provide radiotherapy patients with a hospital-issued ID so they do not have to suffer through security checks. It would not be much more difficult than issuing a driver's license.
yep... it's almost an urban legend, though there have evidently been two such instances... Here's a link
Snopes.com
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.