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How Japanese Scientists Are Monitoring Fukushima Babies For Radiation Exposure
KentuckyFC writes "Parents in the Fukushima region of Japan are intensely worried that their children may be consuming food and water contaminated with radiation. But whole body scanners used to monitor the internal radiation levels of adults don't work for children who cannot stand up inside them. What's more, the machines are not sensitive enough to detect problematic radiation levels in children. That's because children metabolize substances faster than adults and have a lower mass to start with, so the levels of radiation in their bodies tend to be lower. For example, if each adult ingests 3 Becquerels of cesium-137 every day, the internal levels would reach an equilibrium of about 400 Bq/adult body. But a similar intake for a 1-year old child would result in an equilibrium level of about 60 Bq/body, well below the 250 Bq/body sensitivity of adult scanners. Now a team of engineers has built a whole body scanner that is sensitive enough for the job and that children can play inside for the 4 minutes necessary to scan them. And they say the results of the first 100 scans of Fukushima children (average age 4.2 years) are reassuring--none show any evidence of cesium-137. So far."
That is because the radiation levels around the area of Fukisima are so low that no-one in the general population are likely to have any exposure
If one of them has an x-ray then they will get a radiation dose much much higher than any of these figures
This has been blown up out of all proportion to the actual likelyhood of anyone getting exposed
Okay, they've developed a new way to measure radioactivity (NOT radiation! I wish people would make the effort to distinguish between the two properly) in children.
And, horror of horrors, found that none of the children show any sign of abnormal radioactivity levels.
Which is why, presumably, the author of TFS added that "So far" to the end.
It should also be noted that cows haven't started slaughtering people by the millions. So far.
And gold hasn't started raining down from the skies. So far.
And the sun hasn't gone supernova this week. So far (it's early in the week).
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
But can it measure the harm done by fear of radiation?
They are looking for specific material - cesium137. It emits approximately 95% beta and 5% gamma. That is why they had problems looking for it in babies - they basically look for that 5% and calculate the entire exposure based on it.
It's easy to measure beta and alpha emitters in humans. You just have to dry the children, then grind them to a powder, finely spread it over a surface, and use a conventional geiger counter to measure the radioactivity..
The Fukishima nuclear plant has three inoperative nuclear power plants because it had a meltdown after being flooded by a tsunami.
Did you miss the news? If so, why did you not wonder what this entire thing was about?
In light of all their previous obfuscation and lies about Fukushima does anyone believe Japan is monitoring anything that might make Japan Inc. look bad?
I see, thank you. So I guess Cesium 137 represents one of those "certain circumstances" that beta emitters can be measured. I assume the "degraded sensitivity" model would include some kind of 1/0.05 factor for the portion of gamma energy (i.e. oversimplified, maybe the process is 1/20th as sensitive to Cs 137 compared to a 100% gamma emitter).
Strontium 90, on the other hand, appears to be 100% beta decay (please correct me if I am wrong). Accordingly, I assume that whole-body counting process is not capable of detecting it (have to wait for baby teeth for that?). The question, I suppose, would be whether Cesium 137 could be a proxy for Strontium 90 detection. Both appear to be water soluble (Strontium 90, itself, is insoluble, but it can chemically react to create a soluble molecular form).
However, if we are talking about exposure through food, then the problem becomes much more complicated because of all the potential differences in biological interaction Cesium and Strontium may have (how much of this has been mapped out so far?). Is this understanding correct? Can anyone here add to this?
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