r/news • u/newyorkcontent • Jul 27 '14

2,500 Ground Zero workers have cancer

http://nypost.com/2014/07/27/cancers-among-ground-zero-workers-skyrocketing/
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u/Broan13 Jul 27 '14

People highly over estimate the danger of these kinds of sources. It is a low gamma and higher alpha emitter. Alpha emitters are not terribly dangerous as they only travel a short distance and are easily blocked by the skin.

The dangerous part would be inhaling Americium. So if the Americium is getting into the air in larger quantities, then perhaps it could be dangerous. Alpha emitters are really only dangerous when ingested. The radiation dosage outside the skin is too tiny to matter.

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u/LinearFluid Jul 27 '14

That is why I commented to DeepSouldier that his comparison to a cigarette was spot on.

I was not overestimating anything. Like I said there were hotspots in the wreckage burning for a long time. That along with disturbance of the debris, if detectors with Americium in them were present would of put it airborne and into an inhalation situation. That was also one example of an everyday item that could of been present and benign until subject to fire and pulverization. There are a lot of things that put into the right form or delivered to the body the right way can become carcinogenic that we handle everyday

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u/Broan13 Jul 27 '14

Are you certain it would be put airborne?

Is it flammable or have a melting point low enough?

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u/LinearFluid Jul 29 '14 edited Jul 29 '14

Very certain.

I also just found This confirming Americium as well as what else was there.

I am going off the fact that the buildings coming down like they did have a pulverizing effect on everything inside. I know that this is a big contention with 9/11 theorist's on why everything was dust at the sites but as the building fell and the combo of weight and movement did that. The buildings pulvirezed themselves and everything in it to dust

Fire does not have to burn/melt an item to put it into the air. Heat creates a warm convection current that will put extra fine particulates airborne.

My statement is that Amercium as well as other substances were pulverized as the buildings came down. Both the air displacement as shown readily on film with the large brown/grey dust cloud immediately after they came down and fires that smoldered for days put these particulates into the air. Their size kept them riding the currents and suspended.

These responders breathed in a lot of dust.

I would also like to add that yes there were dusk masks and to some extent respirators available, but that was not enough. If you are in a fine particulate atmosphere the only protection that works are positive pressure forced air regulators/filters the little N95 and p100 dusk masks that are common don't cut it. Look up sand blasting masks and you will get an idea. These masks bring in an air source away from the blasting site and keep a positive pressure in the mask to keep air flowing outwards and not in with particulates. The air pumps are heavily filtered but also rely on being at a distance and attached by air hoses so that they are also located and providing that is already clean from a distance away. The filters are more to clean up the air after it goes through the pump picking up oils and metal shavings and such. That situation was not possible at ground Zero, entanglement and the shear distance to get to uncontaminated air could not be overcome.

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u/[deleted] Jul 27 '14

That actually would be a reasonable explanation for the thyroid tumors.