Internet Anthropologist Think Tank: Nuclear Myths

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    Monday, July 31, 2006

    Nuclear Myths

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    "The following is interpreted from attached "official" and
    other "expert" sources. These sources often provide a 'range' for
    effects, but I have simplified this to a single number to make the
    table easier to memorize - and you should memorize it. You can
    then 'extrapolate' for your self the relative severity of effects of
    a number between a higher and lower number.


    600R -- means 100% chance of fatality is expected. Some much earlier -
    but last within two weeks.

    400R -- means 50% will die within one to three weeks. Those that
    don't die are going to be VERY sick and wish that they would. After a
    few days some may feel better but will often then turn, sicken and
    die in a few weeks.

    200R -- lots of sickness, and radiation sickness is pretty terrible
    (Think of cancer treatment without pain killers.) Lots of vomiting -
    hair falling out - and all that. Not nice

    50R -- No fatalities at this level. There is a difference of opinion,
    as to whether the sickness at this level is physical. Some think, as
    for example in this very authoritative study, that at this level the
    sickness is psychosomatic. Whatever its cause it is very general.

    30R -- Most everyone will feel some sickness - - maybe just "punky"
    and it may be "just" psychomatic but it certainly would not be
    beneficial for children and pregnant mothers. Even this level is a
    thousand times higher than the maximum general population exposure
    permitted under peacetime standards.

    In the final analysis, fatality is probabilistic, somewhat like car
    accident fatalities. There have been cases of people getting very
    much higher radiation and surviving, and others with much lower who
    have not. Cause and effect become clouded when working with
    probability issues. There are many impinging factors, such as age,
    health, medical care, or lack of medical care."


    Updated October 1st, 2002
    Understanding Radioactivity
    By Bruce Beach - Radiological Scientific Officer
    survival@webpal.org
    There are many misunderstandings among the general public about
    radioactivity. In Russia (and some other countries) every school
    child receives several weeks of scientifically correct education on
    the subject for the purpose of survival. The North American policy
    has been to leave people in ignorance. Worse yet, special interest
    groups spread their hysteria from the one extreme to the other. The
    military (government) says, "Don't worry about it - we will protect
    you - we just need more money for more and better weapons". At the
    other extreme, there are environmentalists who say - "It is all bad
    and unsurvivable - and there should not even be nuclear power plants
    or the radiation of food".

    Other countries provide fallout shelters and radiation detection
    equipment for their populations. China, Russia, and some other
    countries claim that they have a spot for every member of their
    population. Some like Switzerland and Sweden have two or three spots
    for every person, in case they would happen to be away from home at
    work or school. There are a number of countries, like Israel, that
    have for years required that every new building include a fallout
    shelter. But in North America there is no requirement to have
    shelters and I believe the reason is because unlike with missiles and
    weapons, there is no way large corporations can centrally mass
    produce fallout shelters and make a buck. Consequently, there has
    been no effective lobby for shelters. If they could have been mass
    produced on an assembly line then it would have been a law that
    everyone had to have one.

    There are always two aspects to warfare. The sword and the shield.
    Today, nuclear weapons are the sword. Fallout shelters are the
    shield. The Defense Department is misnamed. It is really the
    Destruction Department. It only has the sword. For the North American
    populaton there has been provided no shield (defense).

    Instead, the US and Canada have closed the public shelters that they
    had. They have taken down the signs and destroyed the supplies. Your
    survival has been left up to you. Consequently, you need to
    understand about nuclear weapons and nuclear radiation if you are
    going to survive it.

    There are three free books on this web site that will give you very
    practical information. They are described at the book link and it
    would be well for you to read the two simpler ones, "You Will Survive
    Doomsday", and "11 Steps to Survival", before you need the knowledge.
    When that time comes you won't have time for reading a book.

    The following is technical information about radioactivity. On
    another page I give you information about radiation detection
    equipment and how to use it.


    Radiation Measurements
    Radioactivity is measured in:


    curie
    sievert
    becquerel
    coulomb/kilogram (C/kg)
    gray
    rad
    rem
    roentgen (R)
    Each of the above measurments can be prefaced with any one of the
    following:

    T tera 10 to the 12th
    G giga 10 to the 9th
    M mega 10 to the sixth
    k kilo 10 to the 3rd
    c centi 10 to the minus 2nd
    m milli 10 to the minus 3rd
    ยต micro 10 to the minus 6th
    n nano 10 to the minus 9th
    Which works out to sixty four different measurements that you can
    come across in reading literature about radioactivity. I have
    conversion tables where I can convert from one type of measurement to
    another, but most people do not want to be bothered with that kind of
    detail. When we say that something is ten to some power it simply
    means that number to be fully written out - needs that number of
    zeroes after it. If it is a minus or negative power then it means
    that there is a decimal point and that many zeroes before the number.
    You need only to understand one basic concept about these numbers.
    The only one of the prefixes that you have to be concerned with is
    the milli (m) prefix. If you run into the others just figure that it
    is a scientific discussion and not of real use to you. But the milli
    one is important. Because it can be dangerous. It is often used - and
    as far as nuclear war survival defense it is usually a misuse.

    The milli means that the measurement is one thousandth (1,000th) of
    what you are concerned about. The problem is that you may find
    dosimeters that measure in milliroengtens or rate meters that measure
    only in milliroentgens. These are peace time standards and are
    useless to you. Five hundred (500) milliroentgens is only one-half of
    a roentgen. Later, when we look at the significance of rates or
    doses, you will see how insignificant that is. In peace time
    literature and nuclear accident reporting you will find references to
    milliroentgens and these may seem to be very high numbers. In
    actuality, by war standards, they are practically insignificant.
    These kind of numbers scare people witless if they have not stopped
    long enough to understand what is being explained here.

    Now as to the measurements themselves. The first four (curie,
    sievert, becquerel, coulomb/kilogram (C/kg) ) are scientific measures
    used to measure the age and strength of a radiation source and do not
    really concern you. If you run into them, find another source of
    information that uses terms that are meaningful for you.

    The next four measurements, (gray, rad, rem, roentgen (R)), have
    subtle differences of meaning to scientists in the field - but for
    your purposes are all equivalent. These measures are used for
    measuring both rate and dosage. What you have to comprehend now - is
    the significance of various levels of rate and dosage.


    Radiation Strength and Dosage
    In North America we measure radioactivity in R (which can mean
    roentgen, rad or rem for our purposes). In Germany and some other
    places they use Grays. Still amounts to the same thing. We are really
    only going to concern ourselves with dosage as measured by a
    dosimeter. The R rating on a rate meter will tell you how much of
    that dosage you will get in an hour from the radiation source that
    you are measuring. So memorize the following table - and you know all
    that you really need to know to figure out the danger or how
    seriously someone has been exposed.

    There are greatly varying opinions about the dangers of
    radioactivity. Many of them generated by hysterical individuals with
    no scientific background in the subject. For a substantial recent
    study on the subject read the following article.

    The peace time danger from radioactivity has been GREATLY
    exaggerated. The very real war time threat which is much more serious
    has been GREATLY ignored. My hope is, that as a result of what you
    learn here, you will largely ignore the peace time concerns and
    concentrate on the war time threat. I will concede that humanity's
    use of nuclear energy for power generation is immoral when we have
    not developed a practical disposal system for the waste. However,
    there are other more pressing immoral problems facing humanity which
    threaten it with its extinction and nuclear war is foremost among
    these.

    The following is interpreted from attached "official" and
    other "expert" sources. These sources often provide a 'range' for
    effects, but I have simplified this to a single number to make the
    table easier to memorize - and you should memorize it. You can
    then 'extrapolate' for your self the relative severity of effects of
    a number between a higher and lower number.


    600R -- means 100% chance of fatality is expected. Some much earlier -
    but last within two weeks.

    400R -- means 50% will die within one to three weeks. Those that
    don't die are going to be VERY sick and wish that they would. After a
    few days some may feel better but will often then turn, sicken and
    die in a few weeks.

    200R -- lots of sickness, and radiation sickness is pretty terrible
    (Think of cancer treatment without pain killers.) Lots of vomiting -
    hair falling out - and all that. Not nice

    50R -- No fatalities at this level. There is a difference of opinion,
    as to whether the sickness at this level is physical. Some think, as
    for example in this very authoritative study, that at this level the
    sickness is psychosomatic. Whatever its cause it is very general.

    30R -- Most everyone will feel some sickness - - maybe just "punky"
    and it may be "just" psychomatic but it certainly would not be
    beneficial for children and pregnant mothers. Even this level is a
    thousand times higher than the maximum general population exposure
    permitted under peacetime standards.

    In the final analysis, fatality is probabilistic, somewhat like car
    accident fatalities. There have been cases of people getting very
    much higher radiation and surviving, and others with much lower who
    have not. Cause and effect become clouded when working with
    probability issues. There are many impinging factors, such as age,
    health, medical care, or lack of medical care.

    More Things to Learn About Radiation
    You can download

    my free booklet about nuclear survival
    A few of the many things that it is good to know about radiation that
    are explained there are:


    The half-life of radioactivity - why it can be deadly at first - but
    safe to come out 3 weeks later. This is explained at MYTH #10.

    Also I particularly recommend that you carefully study and comprehend
    all the information after MYTH #23 so that you will know how low
    rates of radiation can be deadly, how to build a shelter, the effect
    of barrier thicknesses and the 7/10 rule.

    How to filter air in your shelter (The question that I am most often
    asked). I actually also answer it at MYTH #04 but since it is a
    question that is asked so often - at this link I go into a better
    description of the how and why of radioactivity in the air in a
    shelter.

    Here are twenty-three myths that are repeatedly heard (some much more
    often than others) that I try to dispel in my booklet -
    YOU Will Survive Doomsday
    MYTH #01: Almost everyone will suddenly be killed on doomsday.

    MYTH #02: Most people would be quickly killed by the bomb blasts,
    thermal radiation, or radioactivity.

    MYTH #03: You can build an adequate shelter in your basement.

    MYTH #04: You must filter the air coming into a shelter to remove the
    fallout.

    MYTH #05: Water would become radioactive.

    MYTH #06: There would be no dangerous radioactivity after a couple of
    weeks.

    MYTH #07: Radiation sickness is not contagious so there is no danger
    in assisting those affected.

    MYTH #08: Food exposed to radiation becomes radioactive and is
    therefore not edible.

    MYTH #09: If you have a special radiation suit (like you see in the
    movies and on TV) you will be protected from the radiation.

    MYTH #10: New crops of food grown in future years will not be
    radioactive.

    MYTH #11: There is no such thing as a fallout pill. For up to date
    information on this - look at the KI4U link on each page.


    MYTH #12: There is a fallout pill that will protect you from all
    radioactivity.

    MYTH #13: There would be dangerous radioactivity for thousands of
    years.

    MYTH #14: There would be no dangerous radioactivity after a couple of
    years.

    MYTH #15: You are prepared if you have a two weeks emergency supply
    of food stored.

    MYTH #16: You should be prepared to be self-sufficient and be able to
    survive on your own.

    MYTH #17: Any survivors would have to live the rest of their lives
    underground.

    MYTH #18: Life after doomsday won't be worth living.

    MYTH #19: You need not make any preparation because you are either
    going to die in the holocaust or be saved (religious connotation).

    MYTH #20: The bombs today are so large and there are so many they
    will destroy the world.

    MYTH #21: You will receive adequate warning from your government.

    MYTH #22: You will receive no warning, and there is no hope if you
    do.

    MYTH #23: One of the primary targets will be nuclear power plants.

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