The American Spectator

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There would be more radiation hazard to whoever handled the concentrated material (the terrorist) than to whoever had to clean up the same, but widely spread material following an explosion.

The threat to the thyroid is radioactive iodine, which is a fission fragment of a nuclear reaction. Any iodine ingested ends up in the thyroid, and a radioactive isotope will be hazardous. The suggestion of a "dirty bomb" means no nuclear explosion, no nuclear reaction, hence no fission fragments, and no iodine, radioactive or not. The author is starting the media hysteria sequence, but maybe just out of ignorance.

I will personally volunteer to assist in the cleanup/decontamination following any use of a terrorist "dirty bomb," anyplace in the country, and I will do it in street clothes as long as an industrial respirator mask is available.

p>I was chief engineer of one of the early Polaris nuclear submarines in the 1960s, and I worked in the nuclear industry until I retired. br> -- Richard Soderholm /p>

Great stuff, but that tape in a prior lifetime was also known as, in the AAF, as 100 knot tape, and in the Navy as ordnance tape, presumably to secure arming wires to bombs on their bombracks.

p>There you go. Keep it up. I love your stuff. br> -- Gene Hauber br> Meshoppen, PA /p> p> RUSSERT'S LATEST POTATO

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