Re: Radioiodine

[Guest guest]

Simon,

If they say the dose is so small for use in uptake.. Then why when they

were taking me to have the test run and my daughter saw me, started to run to me

holding her 3 week old son and the nurse yelled for her to stay away from me as

I was radioactive... That was when I found out what the pill was I had just

taken.

Yet they had no problem giving me the !-131 and sending me home to apt.

where I lived with son and his 2 young children...

We tried our best to keep children away from me but it didn't always work..

I can live with what the Dr. did to me but worry about what he did thru me

to my grandchildren...

I believe the dose of I-131 is still guess work. I was given the middle of

road amount being told I'd need another dose. Within 8 weeks I was on

synthroid. He told me he still believed I'd go hyper again though. He told me

not to throw out my tapazole or propanonol...

I did throw them out, made me sick... I had over 1,000 tablets of

propanonol and 60 tapazole. All that money on them but wasn't going to hang

onto meds.

Right now am trying to talk my Dr. into armour..but she said if anything

she'll perscribe a seperate med to go with my synthroid...

I still remember a nurse on grave yard shift coming into my room telling me

I had GD and she had it too and that she felt sorry for me... I did not know

what GD was or why she felt sorry for me but now I do... I wished I had asked

her to explain, but I didn't...

Becki

---------------------------------

[Guest guest]

I gather you live in the UK (if not, my references will be a bit off). You may

have read that I've worked in radiation protection. In the US (I'm not sure

about other countries) there is a very strange break between occupational and

non-occupational exposure. This has always bothered me, but I've become far

more bothered recently.

Basically, you can receive any dose outside work, but they will control your

expose at work by your occupational exposure(s). For example, one source I

found list a whole body dose of about 4 Rem due to an ablative treatment. The

dose to the Thyroid was about 1500 Rem. The occupational limit would be 5 Rem

to the whole body in a given year. When you show up for work following an

ablation, they can expose you to 5 Rem (totaling 9 Rem plus another 0.4 for

background). The fact that you've exceeded the organ limit for the thyroid for

a lifetime doesn't matter to work. And, it seems strange to me that the same

pill that is dosing a medical technician, and being counted against their dose

limits, I'm going to swallow and never have it the dose recorded!

The body doesn't care were the radiation comes from, so why is this done this

way. This simple answer is that it would be too hard to track everyone's

exposure: accounting for X-rays, radon exposure, medical treatments, etc.

Again, the body doesn't care - that's what bothers me.

My work uses a maximum control level 1/10 what the government allowed (1/10th of

5 Rem: 0.5 Rem = 500 mRem). This insures that there's no way they can mess up

and end up audited or fined. There are work control levels placed on people and

jobs of 100 mRem, or even 50 mRem, to ensure no job gets out of hand. I

targeted 1/10 the dose of the job max for my workers (teaching them to use

superior time, distance, and shielding practices). Because the resulting target

dose is so low, an ablated co-worker could max out their buddies' doses limits

just by sitting in the same office, or drinking coffee near them in the first

few weeks following the pill. Additionally, we operate under very low

contamination controls, and have active detectors monitoring constantly (for as

low as 1/100,000 a millicurie - a 10 millicurie dose could contaminate the whole

state from our perspective). So, an ablated worker would set off alarms from

10s of feet away (the detector is detecting radiation and can't distinguish

between radiation from contamination and radiation from the worker's thyroid).

Thus, in the end, my work asks that the worker not come in (they ask since they

are legally not allowed to demand). Hum...go in and work against my companies

desire, or stay home and relax with pay - hard call :-)

Now here's were I find it scary. They give you a single sheet telling what to

do and what not to do, but the bottom line is that after swallowing a pill (that

reads way over a Rem/hr), ablative patients are released to wander where ever

they will. Nothing stops them from going to see a move and sitting next to

someone for 2 hours. Nothing stops them from going and playing at a playground

with dozens of children. And, if they are somehow caught doing this, they

haven't broken any law! The system relies totally on the good will and caring

of the patient - the same patient that doesn't have to know anything about

radiation, and probably couldn't learn it from the doctors even if they desired

(we certainly get enough reports back on their teaching skills, don't we?).

So my point is simple. When you consider all the ways you get dosed because the

world does it to you, and all the ways you get doses without your knowledge,

isn't it almost nice to actually get a benefit from a dose (X-rays and medical

tests)?

Don't get me wrong - there's all the difference in the world between a dose that

gets lost in the background of a year (uptake test or thyroid scan) and the dose

that equals 10 years of background in two weeks (an ablative dose) - just as

there's all the difference between a Spring shower and a flood.

My advise is don't sweat the small stuff - the stress alone will hurt you, and

you can't escape 99% of it no matter what you do: 398, 400, 402 mRem in the year

- why stress out over it?

Assuming my assumption on you home land is correct, I'd be interested in how

exposure (all of them, not just occupational) is controlled in the UK.

Devin

Radioiodine

I'm curious if you opted for RAI ablation would the doses

involved affect your work?

As I know some of the UK nuclear workers get " retired to desk

jobs " , either temporarily or permanently if their exposures get

too high.

Simon

[Guest guest]

Hi,

Could someone explain what a TRH test is for... I got a call from clinic

that I have to go and give blood again since they were out of the kits on fri.

when I gave blood for that and the panel.. I hope I get the same tech, she used

an attachment to the needle with a very tiny needle on it so it was actually

painless. She said my veins r very tiny..lol.

Becki

---------------------------------

[Guest guest]

Hi Devin,

>>>Now here's were I find it scary. They give you a single sheet telling

>>>what to do and what not to do, but the bottom line is that after

>>>swallowing a pill (that reads way over a Rem/hr), ablative patients are

>>>released to wander where ever they will. Nothing stops them from going

>>>to see a move and sitting next to someone for 2 hours. Nothing stops them

>>>from going and playing at a playground with dozens of children. And, if

>>>they are somehow caught doing this, they haven't broken any law! The

>>>system relies totally on the good will and caring

of the patient - the same patient that doesn't have to know anything about

radiation, and probably couldn't learn it from the doctors even if they

desired (we certainly get enough reports back on their teaching skills,

don't we?).<<<

I read a newspaper article or research paper this spring, and I will look

for the url if you want to see it. In Germany, they use to keep people in

an isolation area of the hospital after I-131 ablation for 4-6 weeks. This

time period has just been cut down to 2 weeks and then they are released

into the general population.

The scarier thing for me that goes along with what you said above is that

the *safety* issues in this country are becoming even more lax after

ablation in this form. There are even some doctors who are giving ablation

doses in their offices and being allowed to do it. Patients are being told

less and less precautions to take to safeguard family members, co-workers or

people on the street. This is a total injustice.

Some are told <as I was> to use disposable eating utensils and paper plates

and throw them out <which I did>. Others are told NOT to use disposable

anything and to wash their utensils and plates separately, and if they do

use disposable, it must be put in a separate bag and taken to the nuclear

medicine department where they were dosed for disposal...there is NO uniform

in safety issues at all.

In March of this year, I read a post from another man who was given his dose

and left the nuclear med hospital and went to a skateboarding park and spent

several hours skateboarding with his children and all the other children

that were there and had no qualms of exposing anyone else as his dosing

doctor told him there were no safety issues he had to be concerned with.

This is unacceptable.

Patients are being told that this will be taken up ONLY in the thyroid.

Another lie, it is taken up in all reproductive organs, breast tissue and

pancreas <and more that I am not remembering right now. This is another

risk, and in my mind, would account for the fertility issue many woman face

if they wait for several years after ablation to try to have children.

All the risks are not be given to people, all of the safety factors are

being stressed, too much is being hidden. When the DOE doesn't release

studies for all these years, what are they hiding? Too much risk is

involved and part of me still believes we are nothing more than human guinea

pigs with no long term follow up. Too little regard for human life, with

either those treated and none with their family members or people in their

lives. It is no wonder we are seeing more and more thyroid disease each and

every day. <Not speaking hyper here>

Before you shared what you do for a living, I had already figured out from

your posts and tone that you had to be in the nuclear industry in some form

;-) It explains much to me about why you feel so strongly about your

beliefs. I am glad you are becoming worried about some of the issues and

hope you keep looking into the safety issues or lack of. If they take such

safety precautions with you and the other employees you work with, but don't

in the medical use...doesn't that raise more questions for you?

Your textbook explanations are just that, for *me* and since they are

conclussions drawn by people who want to continue with the use of these

substances, whether I-131 or I-123 or any other form, of course they are

going to continue to tout their safety, I am just not going to believe them.

I am glad that some of the medias ARE doing investigative work and shows

and exposing that not is all what it appears to be in the medical field.

Not enough exposure has been done in this particular area but I hope that

what has been done continues, along with the exposures of the lack of safety

in the vaccine area. I believe that when the medical area is using things

they want us to believe are safe, it is nothing more than big business

making money regardless of safety issues. Long term safety studies are a

thing of the past anymore so there never will be accurate numbers to give

true comparisons.

Those of us who have had I-131 ablation can not go back and undo it. And

when we do figure out we were hoodwinked we can't play " I wish I hadn't done

it " We can NOT beat ourselves up over the decision we made based on the

lies and half truths we were told at a time when we were so very sick and

our brains were not functioning propely. We can encourage new people to look

hard and long at all of our treatment options, including alternatives. We

can encourage new people to become euthyroid BEFORE making any permanent

treatment decisions. We can and do make a difference in this group in many

lives. Many more people are going on and attaining remission, or choosing

long term atd use but keeping their thyroid producing all that we are meant

to have. This isn't a bad thing. They <medical field> just don't know

enough about the workings of the thyroid, the importance of it, they don't

understand how the endocrine system and immune system work and they have no

answers on how to fix things when they go wrong. Hopefully the Genome and

Stem Cell research will open doors in this area and other treatments will be

found that will work without destroying essential body

organs/glands/systems. They need to not be in such a hurry to destroy and

do more with finding other ways.

You and I may always disagree on this issue, even with the I-123, though you

are having some doubts and raising some questions in your own mind, from

your post...as you continue your journey, you may well change your mind ;-)

We all have believed fully in our medical professionals, we have blindly

followed our government, after all they have the FDA, the CDC, the DOE and

many other branches and angencies to keep us safe...for me, I now doubt

and/or question them all. We can all find studies that will support our way

of thinking, but when you throw in some commonsense while reading them,

isn't it better to raise the red flags and to err on the side of caution

than blindly following written words dictated by certain findings, that may

or may not be true. Especially in light of the many exposures of fraud,

*fixing* studies so they read the way one company wants them to over the

last few years. They are out there, I have read many of them. What we do

with them, what we choose to believe, what we choose to question is up to

each and everyone of us as individuals.

I'm glad your are raising questions in yourself Devin.

Take care,

Jody

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[Guest guest]

My point here was that " radioactive waste material " is in inflammatory and

derogative term that simple isn't necessary to use. It's like inserting

" stupid " after ever pronoun: Your stupid, their stupid, his stupid, etc. In the

case of I-123, it is the final product of an expensive production process. In

the case of I-131, it is the byproduct of nuclear fission (as gasoline is the

byproduct of oil refining). They are not waste. They are products.

The point of stating that fission produces " nearly all the isotopes known to man

- including the iodine isotopes. " is in the final " s " . You get what you get.

You can chemically separate elements, but not isotopes. That cost lots of money

and takes very expensive equipment. The separation of Uranium isotopes for

example costs billions and took million square feet facilities. I-131 is the

main isotope of iodine produced from fission, and that's how it is produced as a

product: fission. In theory this could be from old fuel, as in waste. But in

practice, at least for the US distribution, it is produced specifically as a

medicine. It simply wouldn't be practical or cost effective to purify fission

iodine down for I-123. For one thing, it doesn't stick around very long (half

life just over half a day). I still stand on the statement that I-123 is

produced in a cyclotron and not from fission products (intentional or " waste " ).

The accidental release of radioactive material is always bad. I certainly don't

condone that. That it has happened, saddens me - as much of history saddens me.

Regarding the statement " ...so it does require you to dissolve fuel rods " That

statement is not correct. A tube filled with uranium powder will outgas fission

products that are gaseous (xenon for example). These gases can be drawn off,

leaving everything else behind. A slight temperature above room temperature and

the iodine is among these gases. Iodine, of all the gases, reacts nicely with

silver. Silver impregnated filters that capture the iodine can be easily

chemically reduced to sodium iodine, the form of iodine in most pills. The

amount of I-131 needed is so small that the tube will produce what is needed -

for the lifetime of the reactor (that is, it need never be removed, split open,

etc.). It is possible for disaster to strike, but not as likely as when moving

and dissolving fuel rods. Sorry, the mental image of dipping rods into an

hissing acid batch and catching the fumes to give to unwitting humans just isn't

correct. ;-)

And, I would worry more about the Plutonium. It sticks around in the body for

your whole life (effectively no radiological or biological decay in terms of

your lifetime). And, as far as I know you didn't get any benefit from your

exposure to it - not even an outdated medical test result :-)

Radioiodine

graves_support wrote:

>

> I-123 is not " radioactive waste material " .

Cyclotrons - but the source is irrelevant assuming the purity is

appropriate for medical use. Atoms don't care as my chemistry

teacher always said.

> For that matter, I-131 for human use (which is produced as a byproduct of

uranium fission) is not " nuclear waste " either. It is produced specifically

for human use. There is not reason to refer to either isotope as " waste. "

It is produced from reactor by-products, not cyclotrons though,

so it does require you to dissolve fuel rods, or equivalent for

your reactor type. Some people think that protocols that release

" hot " material from reactor fuel rods are inappropriate use of

nuclear reactors. I've been exposed to Windscale's - whoops I

mean Sellafield's - propaganda - so don't trust my opinion on

the topic . Cumbria is a nice place apart from

Barrow-in-Furness and Sellafield, but that is an aesthetic

judgement. Sellafield is a fascinating place to visit if you are

interested in physics, although I'm not sure about the burnt out

reactor building, or the plutonium released by reprocessing,

small as the quantities released are.

> Radioactive waste contains, at some point, nearly all the isotopes known to

man - including the iodine isotopes. But comparing that to radiopharmaceuticals

is like equating cow manure to an apple because they both involve things eaten

and contain the element carbon.

Hmm, but the radioiodine isotopes are some of the most

dangerous, because the body concentrates them in the thyroid,

and the half life of I-131 is at a value that is not so low that

it is all decays before you eat it, and not so high that it

doesn't fry you once inside.

[Guest guest]

Re: Radioiodine

> Patients are being told that this will be taken up ONLY in the thyroid.

> Another lie, it is taken up in all reproductive organs, breast tissue and

> pancreas <and more that I am not remembering right now. This is another

> risk, and in my mind, would account for the fertility issue many woman

face

> if they wait for several years after ablation to try to have children.

This is a half lie. The thyroid tissue is the only tissue that absorbs

iodine. But you took iodine orally and then had it went to the blood. The

blood absorbed it - it took it up! Then everywhere the blood went (which

would be everywhere living in your body) it doses stuff: not a lot, and not

for long (mostly over the first few days). Then, and here's the definite

half truth, it tagged along to a whole bunch of other systems besides the

thyroid. The thyroid cells absorbed it - that didn't happen anywhere else.

But some of it went into sweat glands, some went into lymph glands, some

went into the kidneys, some into the intestines, some into mammary glands -

some into every body fluid you've got. Not cells, but reservoirs of fluid.

Some gets flushed out rather easily: your kidney ever time you urinate for

example, or your sweat glands when you sweat. But some don't get flushed

out as easily. The doses are not atrocious, but they aren't zero either.

I'll bet the doctor told you it would all go to the thyroid or be eliminated

as urine of sweat - which isn't 100% true.

> Before you shared what you do for a living, I had already figured out from

> your posts and tone that you had to be in the nuclear industry in some

form

> ;-) It explains much to me about why you feel so strongly about your

> beliefs. I am glad you are becoming worried about some of the issues and

> hope you keep looking into the safety issues or lack of. If they take

such

> safety precautions with you and the other employees you work with, but

don't

> in the medical use...doesn't that raise more questions for you?

Risk (occurrence and severity) is the price we pay for actions - a cost. If

actions yield something we want, it's a benefit. The cost/benefit analysis

asks if the cost is worth the benefit. The better you know the cost and the

benefit, the better this decision will be. I know a lot about the cost, and

have learned a lot about the benefit - so for I-123 it's easy for me to do

the analysis (low risk and I really want to know the results). The worst

situation is when there is no benefit but still a cost (like some guy in the

general public you could dose walking around).

> Those of us who have had I-131 ablation can not go back and undo it. And

> when we do figure out we were hoodwinked we can't play " I wish I hadn't

done

> it " We can NOT beat ourselves up over the decision we made based on the

> lies and half truths we were told at a time when we were so very sick and

> our brains were not functioning properly. We can encourage new people to

look

> hard and long at all of our treatment options, including alternatives.

Please do - all of the options: all the good, all the bad. And before that,

make sure what your disease is - diagnosing Graves can be hard, and test

result are sometimes baffling. And, this is very important, remember that

individuals are different. A treatment that makes sense to a 40 year old

male who won't have any more children with a mild case of Graves may well

make no sense to an 11 year old girl with severe symptoms who dreams of a

big family! Too little information is the problem, not too much.

> You and I may always disagree on this issue, even with the I-123, though

you

> are having some doubts and raising some questions in your own mind, from

> your post...as you continue your journey, you may well change your mind

;-)

> We all have believed fully in our medical professionals, we have blindly

> followed our government, after all they have the FDA, the CDC, the DOE and

> many other branches and agencies to keep us safe...for me, I now doubt

> and/or question them all. We can all find studies that will support our

way

> of thinking, but when you throw in some commonsense while reading them,

> isn't it better to raise the red flags and to err on the side of caution

> than blindly following written words dictated by certain findings, that

may

> or may not be true. Especially in light of the many exposures of fraud,

Be careful, I may change your mind. We are not a different as our life

histories would indicate (though you now know more of mine than I of yours -

hint, hint). Some risks we can't avoid, I'm greatly opposed to not taking

action against my Graves.

Government is corrupt and stupid - if it weren't necessary, we would cut it

off at the neck. Still, we live longer and better life's, as a whole, than

any before us. But don't let up - hold all agencies accountable. Suspect

them all, and demand high standards. Punish violators, and trust them only

when you have too. The writers of the Constitution didn't trust their

creation - neither should we - watch them like they were an ex-con (which in

many cases they are). This is my patriot speech of the week. ;-)

Devin

[Guest guest]

Replies to and Devin's posts.

graves_support wrote:

>

>

> Subject: Re: Radioiodine

>

> If they say the dose is so small for use in uptake.. Then why when they

were taking me to have the test run and my daughter saw me, started to run to me

holding her 3 week old son and the nurse yelled for her to stay away from me as

I was radioactive... That was when I found out what the pill was I had just

taken.

>

> Yet they had no problem giving me the !-131 and sending me home to apt.

where I lived with son and his 2 young children...

There is huge variation in the controls used following RAI

ablation, some places lock you away in special rooms, others

treat as outpatients.

Perhaps we should get Devin to critique the differences.

I think the nurse was over reacting with the RAIU tests.

Probably use to doing RAI ablation. So probably no harm done on

that episode. As we were discussing the risk from RAIU is low,

I'm more concerned with the thyroid of the person swallowing the

pill, Devin tells me I'm worrying too much, but you went onto

have RAI ablation, so the RAIU dose is insignificant.

> Right now am trying to talk my Dr. into armour..but she said if anything

she'll perscribe a seperate med to go with my synthroid...

Good luck. This time around I asked my endo about treatments for

hypothyroidism and T3, before discussing permanent treatments

for Grave's. I hope you don't get a second chance at this.

If your doctor is prepared to prescribe T3, I'd say try that

first, and worry about alternatives like Armour if it doesn't

help.

> Date: Fri, 9 Aug 2002 12:44:49 -0400

>

> Subject: Re: Radioiodine

> And, it seems strange to me that the same pill that is dosing a medical

technician, and being counted against their dose limits, I'm going to swallow

and never have it the dose recorded!

Does seem bizarre, you think your employer would want to record

significant medical exposures, so if a worker were unfortunate

enough to develop a rare leukemia or some such, they would have

a full audit trail to hand.

> So my point is simple. When you consider all the ways you get dosed because

the world does it to you, and all the ways you get doses without your knowledge,

isn't it almost nice to actually get a benefit from a dose (X-rays and medical

tests)?

I guess, although I still prefer the radioisotopes to be used in

the pathology lab, rather than inside me, whenever possible.

I get enough radiation exposure from longhaul air travel

> Assuming my assumption on you home land is correct, I'd be interested in how

exposure (all of them, not just occupational) is controlled in the UK.

The " National Radiological Protection Board " advise on all

aspects of radiation exposure in the UK, including non-ionising

radiation.

They don't go into great detail on their website.

http://www.nrpb.org/

The Nuclear Safety Directorate is part of the Health and Safety

Executive (who are also responsible for ensuring employers look

after employees). This is the watchdog who check and investigate

the practical problems, at places like Sellafield (Actually that

is the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, but that is a

division of the NSD AFAIK).

http://www.hse.gov.uk/

http://www.hse.gov.uk/nsd

The relevant statutory instrument is published by HMSO in 1999.

I think there was a medical version issued in 2000, so medical

issues may be different, but the Nuclear Safety Directorate

introduction page will point to relevant publications.

http://www.hmso.gov.uk/si/si1999/19993232.htm

It is dry reading, and a lot of material will be the same as the

US I suspect, as the ICRP guidance is widely accepted.

[Guest guest]

Hi Becki,

A TRH test is used to tell if you have a pituitary or hypothalamic problem

that's causing you to not secrete TSH. TRH, or thyrotropin releasing hormone

is the hormone produced by your hypothalamus when it sees that your thyroid

hormone levels (T4, T3) are too low. TRH stimulates the production of TSH and

this causes you to produce more thyroid hormone.

In the TRH test, you have a TSH level drawn. Then you are given synthetic TRH

and your blood is again drawn for TSH to see if you have the normal rise in

TSH that you should get from TRH. Take care, Elaine

[Guest guest]

Hi all,

I haven't yet had a chance to read all of the radioiodine posts, but I have

to say that I've learned much from what I've read so far.

I just wanted to add another anecdote into the 'mistakes our doctors have

made' files regarding the uptake test (which I took because I was, and

remain, comfortable with the test, whereas I think RAI is problematic, if

not downright dangerous, for a number of reasons).

My sister-in-law took the uptake test and then went home and nursed her six

month old baby!!! Not one person asked here if she was nursing -- just

pregnant. My poor sister-in-law fed that baby off and on till I talked to

her that night and asked, as an afterthought, if she had to sign something

saying she wasn't breastfeeding (which I had to do at the Mayo Clinic).

Almost two years later, we're both still worried. It's one thing to take a

thyroid uptake with that small amount of radioactive material in an adult

body -- quite another to have a six month old baby nurse within an hour of

the test!!!

B

[Guest guest]

I can't pass up an intro like that. :-) Thanks Simon.

I would like to suggest another possibility. The pills are listed as

radioactive sources and are licensed to a certified person. At my hospital this

is the doctor who heads up nuclear medicine. All the hundred or so people under

him technically, and legally, work with his sources at his direction and

oversight. If he has a lick of sense he has beat his chest and read them the

riot act on maintaining control of sources, ensuring the right person gets the

right source, and ensuring that the source doesn't become a spill. If any of

these happen, it could result in legal action (even jail time), monetary fines,

and bad publicity. Imagine if the wrong person got a dose, or a dose that was

to be for a scan was really an ablative dose. Not only would the hospital not

have enough money to cover the suit, those involved would face criminal charges

and jail time.

With this in mind, did the tech know where the pill was for sure? Were they

afraid a child would knock over the pill's container and create a spill. Or

perhaps that the child would see " candy " and eat it? I suspect seeing a child

run in a nuclear medicine facility generated a quick (trained) response from the

tech.

The reality is that it takes a good while for the pill to dissolve - then a

while more to work (absorb, uptake) into the blood and finally the sweat. With

no contamination concern initially, the radiation is the only issue. A point

source of that magnitude in the stomach (shielded buy half your body) is

certainly no concern for a couple seconds. Who was going to yell out an hour

later when there is contamination on your skin? If not then, certainly not now.

ly, this a more responsible tech response than some of the other stories

I've heard. At least it was overly conservative. Some stories are right down

scary - mindless.

Did they give you I-131 (as you wrote) or I-123? I'm sure not following why

some places use I-131 or Tc-99. I-123 is safer and does the job. Can they not

know better? Do they get a volume discount if they stick with the same isotope?

If they gave you an ablative dose, they would hand you paper (which you could

read or not, and follow or not) and turn you loose. In effect your post-pill

actions could be identical to your actions following a diagnostic dose, or no

dose at all. Basically, there is nothing in place to ensure that there is a

difference post-pill between a diagnostic dose and an ablative dose (at least in

the US)! It's scary.

As a nuclear engineer, with training and experience in radiation detection and

protection, I feel I have a right to critique the study that was conducted to

support this policy (or lack of one). ly it was filled with flaws. I can

point out a bunch, but the most glaring were that the subjects followed the

instruction sheet (something Joe Average might, or might not, do) and detection

was limited to point monitoring of radiation fields in transient areas of the

house, such as a point on the bathroom wall (it did not include cross

contamination measurements and did not measure the maximum dose areas). If you

wish to learn more of the study, let me know - otherwise I won't bore the group.

I sent my family to visit the grandparents and cousins for a month while I

constantly decon my house, out of the public's way - and I'm clearly more

comfortable with radiation and contamination than many of you. What benefit

would any exposure to my family be to them? In this case, any significant

exposure (risk) is bad (all cost and not benefit). My children are young and my

family is close. How would I tell a three-year old that Daddy can't hold her

for her favorite show, or kiss her good night? I knew it would just leave us

both emotionally hurt. Now she's on an adventure and is have a grand time being

spoiled by grandparents 1500 miles away. Food for thought.

This issue isn't so much that these processes have a good cost/benefit ratio, or

that they can be done " safely " within the general danger of living. The issue I

have is " Are they being consistently done safely? " . And, " Are they being done

ethically? " . I would hope that anyone who would benefit from these tests and

procedures will get them. But it would appear you would have to seek outside

help to ensure that you know what's going on (the ethical issue) and to ensure

you are doing it as safely as possible, for you and others. Sad really.

Devin

Re: Radioiodine

>

> If they say the dose is so small for use in uptake.. Then why when

they were taking me to have the test run and my daughter saw me, started to run

to me holding her 3 week old son and the nurse yelled for her to stay away from

me as I was radioactive... That was when I found out what the pill was I had

just taken.

>

> Yet they had no problem giving me the !-131 and sending me home to apt.

where I lived with son and his 2 young children...

There is huge variation in the controls used following RAI

ablation, some places lock you away in special rooms, others

treat as outpatients.

Perhaps we should get Devin to critique the differences.

I think the nurse was over reacting with the RAIU tests.

Probably use to doing RAI ablation. So probably no harm done on

that episode. As we were discussing the risk from RAIU is low,

I'm more concerned with the thyroid of the person swallowing the

pill, Devin tells me I'm worrying too much, but you went onto

have RAI ablation, so the RAIU dose is insignificant.