Regarding the last post about smoke detectors emmitting primarily alpha and gamma rays, the author talks about alpha rays, but ignores information about gamma rays. Gamma rays are a form of *ionizing radiation *and can cause serious damage when absorbed by living tissue. Gamma rays can and DO cause cell damage or death. In essence, you are much better off if gamma radiation kills your cells, otherwise the damage done to the DNA strands within the surviving exposed cells leads to molecular changes which generally results in the development of cancer.
The medical field uses gamma radiation in many of their diagnostic machines. Ironically, doctors are now admitting that the very medical isotopes used to detect and cure cancer are also causing cancer!! It would seem you’re ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’.
Effective shielding from gamma rays can ONLY be achieved by large masses of materials such as lead, aluminum, concrete or soil (substances with high atomic numbers/density). Hoping that the materials found in a smoke detector will protect you from gamma radiation is like hoping that an 8"x10" piece of photocopy paper will keep you dry in a rainstorm.
Nuclear proponents talk about the comparison of radioactive exposure levels to the ‘background radiation’ in an effort to downplay the ugly realities of radiation exposure. What they don’t like to disclose is the fact that our background radiation levels increase every year with each nuclear/radioactive emmision. These emmisions happen in many ways. Nuclear power plants have both planned and controlled radioactive releases into the atmosphere and into the water. There are many emmisions associated with uranium mining and refining, in the ‘refurbishment’ of spent nuclear fuel rods, in the discharge of (DU) Depleted Uranium munitions, in wirelining (radioactive mapping/logging) of oilfield holes drilled, etc. The list goes on and on. One of the saddest radiation exposures I received information on was from a cousin of one of my good friends who used to haul the ‘yellow cake’ from a uranium production facility to a refining plant in the USA and then haul watermelons back in the SAME trailer!!
The problem with radioactive exposure is simple. People must take the initiative to be better informed as to where these sources exist and then make the concious choice to avoid those sources or suffer the consequences, how ever slow and painful they may be. Simple case in point, after finding out that the glow-in-the-dark dials on old watches and clocks are radioactive, I instructed my family to dispose of these items in a low-level radioactive waste facility. Who’d have thunk!!
awsome and thank you. it is sad they are doing there best NOT to inform the population of the dirty secrets. my grandfather lives in homestead fl. 2 miles from his house is turkey pointe, a neuclear power plant. The cooling tanks outflow into the ocean into miami, the FL keys and into the everglades…sad thing is they have a park that is not even a mile from the power plant that you SEE IT and it has a swimming area… I MOVED FAR AWAY! the fact is we didnt even know about the effects of radioactivity until after they dropped an untested bomb on hiroshima and the plutonium bomb on nagasaki… then we were all " Oh! we’ll come help you!" and used those poor people as lab rats to see what kind of damage was done. Not even Marie curie and her family knew what kind of damage radioactivity causes to living cells and tissues…she died of a-plastic anemia caused by walking around with test tubes of polonium in her labcoat, so did her husband, daughter, and her husband. what about the radium girls? painting those clocks with the paint and licking the brushes…ugh…
sad thing is the Trinity site, where they tested the plutonium bomb they dropped on Nagasaki…THEY LET PEOPLE GO AND STAND THERE!!!All they did was bulldose the site, but an obilisk there and said “lets make money on these retards that are going to come here and get irradiated” I mean Really america are you that DUMB! and Trinitite? they sell it on the internet! saying its safer to have then a smoke detector…and that is how I found out smoke detectors were radioactive. Look the fact that cecil is saying alpha emmision and not gamma tripped me out, alpha is safest, beta and gamma kill, end of story. They need to make ALL radioactive materials illegal for safty reasons. If you want Neuclear power, go solar all it is is a giant nuclear oven. And yes about treating cancers with gamma sounds like biting your nose to spite your face. my aunt, bone marrow cancer. Treating her with radiation therepy. what do you think comes from long time exposure to radioactive decay. Cancer of the bone marrow. it seems they just want to kills us faster… Oh your sick…RADIATION! Oh not better…ohwell… It seems the Insanity is more present then ever before, at least back then we were niaeve about the dangers of radioactive materials, we know now…and are still playing around with something far more dangerous then fire…No wonder the increasing cancers and developmental disorders are greater then before. it doesnt help people are too immersed in they’re daily lives to study what is around them. Yay for ignorance…
[QUOTE=Cecil Adams]
One consumer organization estimates that if ionization-type smoke detectors were placed in every U.S. home, they’d result in one additional cancer death every seven years. On the other hand, they’d save the lives of perhaps 4,500 of the 7,000 people who die in fires every year.
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A while back I overheard a co-worker worrying about the radiation from her smoke detector. I responded with the above quote. Her response to that was “Oh, so all they have to do is find that one person and tell them not to get a smoke detector!”. :eek: I got a serious pain in my head from holding the snerk in.
Then, she was telling another co-worker how I eased her fears of radioactive smoke detectors, and added “but they should be able to find that one person, they have seven years!”. Our other co-worker needed a new keyboard due to it being soaked with coffee, and blamed me for it.
