I've heard that RAI only has a 1/2 life of about 8-days. The trace amounts are so low that it's less likely to pose a problem.
Being close to the Reactor site in Japan however poses different health questions though.
Cesium and Plutonium do not disipate. With the amount of leakage from the plant that is going into the ocean (according to the experts) I wonder how long it will be until they tell people not to eat fish, shellfish and other aquatics.

I can't believe they don't have a handle on the plant yet. It sure is scary, especially for those who live close by.

If the radioactive iodine levels are high enough, it could cause thyroid cancer in the future. The young are most at risk. I'm not sure it is the right kind of radioactive iodine to kill the thyroid though, like they use in RAI? I don't think the levels across the ocean are high enough [yet], at least in the air. It does make you wonder about the food sources, though. I hope the US will be checking levels of imported food.

Hi,
What a sad, horrible mess!! I think we have more information on what 131I can do to people than the general public, don't we? So, it looks like from what we've seen on here, 131I is the radioisotope that they use for thyroid ablation. Ablative doses are in the MILLIcurie (mCi = 10^-3 curies, or one thousandth of a curie) range, ranging from as low as about 5 to 10mCi for Graves ablation (So this would look like 0.005 or 0.010 curies), and they administer higher doses for thyroid cancer, as much as 20mCi or more (0.020curies), and you drink that all in one dose after eating a low iodine diet for awhile. The low iodine diet they prescribe before the ablation with radioactive iodine is to help deplete the iodine in your system, so your thyroid can better absorb the radioactive Iodine when they administer it.

So, they are finding PICOcurie amounts (pCi = 10^-12 curies) in water as far to the east as Massachusetts. I think the latest number they found in their rainwater was 79 pCi/Liter, or 0.000000000079 curies/liter). So, if you divide the amount that they give to ablate your thyroid for thyroid cancer by the amount that they are measuring in a liter of Massachusetts rainwater (0.020 curies / 0.000000000079 curies), the amount in one liter of the rain water ends up being about 254 billion times smaller than a dose needed to ablate the thyroid.

Now all that being said, radioactive iodine will accumulate over time in the thyroid, and it's not great that we have it here, but the amount does decay by 1/2 every 8 days, so, if (God willing!!) they completely stop the leaking of the radiation into the environment, the moment they do, the amount of 131I in the environment will indeed divide by 1/2 every 8 days or so, until you can no longer detect it. However, it looks like they are still really struggling over there, so we'll probably continue to get fresh RAI wafting over our way until they get it done.

So, if you guys start to see MILLIcurie amounts of radioactive iodine, or even MICROcurie amounts (uCi = 10^-6 curies) we would probably be in some trouble, so keep your eyes peeled for increasing amounts, and in the meantime, we should all keep our fingers crossed that they get that situation over there under control, ASAP! Poor people of Japan! The ones who are at most risk, were the people who lived around the accident site, and that is why they administered non-radioactive iodine tablets to those folks. They were at much greater risk for thyroid damage than we are over here.

What a disaster! I hope they get it all under control very soon.

Hannah

Oops! Correction, the amount of radioactive Iodine found in 1L of Massachusetts rainwater is 253 Million times smaller than an ablative dose for thyroid cancer, not a billion times smaller. I typoed! (The actual number is (0.020 curies / 0.000000000079 curies = 253164556.96) Please double check my math and make sure I'm not being dumb. Thanks!!
Hannah

Hi Again,
I just wanted to add that California has measured more radioactive Iodine in our rain water. Berkeley has measured 20Becquerels/L which converts to about 0.5nanocuries, which is 540pCi. Massachusetts was reporting 79pCi's in their rainwater.

Here is a radioactivity conversion site, where you can type in a number in one unity of measurement and get what it is in another:

http://online.unitconverterpro.com/unit-conversion/convert-alpha/convert.php?cat=radiation---radioactivity

I think the above calculator helps me to go back and forth between the different units that the newspapers report, when they report on it.

We had a lot of rain in California, especially the northern part. I wonder what quantities of the other radioisotopes we had in the rain water were? I wish they would just tell us instead of saying their typical line "Everything's great!" While I agree that we probably don't need to panic, they also don't need to treat us like imbeciles. We're not babies. Give us the data. Stop just saying "Everything is fine." Show it.

Hannah:

Thanks for your math on this. I don't know what we would do without you...

{{{hugs}}}

I hope it's helpful, but I should correct that I am not personally worried about the amount of the 131I in the rainwater unless it reaches higher concentrations, but I am not at all happy that it's here, and don't like the "don't worry, be happy" line we keep getting, AND, can I also say that I'm very disappointed in the California response to this. I think that Massachusetts did a much better job keeping its citizens informed than California has. I had to find the California content of 131I on my own, by searching the web. The UC Berkeley physics department is very helpful, btw, if people want to ask them questions about radioactivity. I'd check out their website if you have time.
I understand that officials don't want to create a panic, but we deserve to know and not be kept in the dark. And, I'm very disappointed (to put it mildly) that they don't have all the sensors working on the California coast. Incredible, especially at a time like this. It just seems irresponsible, regardless of whether there is something they consider significant to measure, or not.
Anyway, I'm not trying to stir up the hornets nest with this, or make anyone more worried than they need to be (because honestly, what are we going to do about it, really? We're lucky that we can at least block RAI with non-rad Iodine, but the other isotopes, I'm not sure what we'd be able to do about them) but I'm disappointed with the handling of this by our country and the "dumming down" they have been doing when they report on the amount of radioactivity we're being exposed to. Anyone else, or is it just me? I guess I hope it's just me. It just irritates me because without showing the data, they are doing the equivalent of when the cops swarm around some scene and say "There's nothing to see here, folks!" which always makes me think, "Really, then, why are you there?" We probably have "Nothing to see here" but unless they report the numbers in an intelligent way, we are left taking their word for it (or, worrying that they don't know!)
Anyway, that is what I have been feeling like lately. Thanks, for letting me vent!
Hugs!!
Hannah

well said hannah! and thanks for the conversions. I'm a paranoid person by nature, and I don't like to hear the "oh we have nothing to worry about" I'm like you - show me the real data and prove it! It makes me more paranoid when they just say "oh its all fine." it very well might be, but prove it!

Hannah:

Don't worry, I feel the same as you do. So do the others here. We are all worried. Let's hope we 'hear' more and are not kept in the dark.

{{{hugs}}}

Thanks, Ladies. I feel better knowing that I'm not the only one frustrated by the way things have been reported. Here is the UC Berkeley website for their air and water monitoring:

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/UCBAirSampling

They also have a forum where you can ask questions. I checked out the rainwater data, and it is updated daily, just in case anyone is interested.

Here is also an interactive map of Japan and the US with the radiation levels updated every 10minutes.

http://www.rdtn.org/

It is posted in several different measurements of radiation, so that is one of the reasons why I posted the radiation conversion calculator above. Japan is mostly reporting in the units of "nanoGray/Hr" (nGy/hr), and according to the site, if they were reading 1000nGy/Hr, they'd reach their annual alloted radiation dose in 80days. Several of the cities have been monitoring their background radioactivity for months, and you can see a dramatic spike after the accident in Fukushima on many of the areas south of the plant, which are reading over 100times greater background levels than they had months before.
There are a few sites in America, too, that are monitoring the radiation that is reaching us, if you guys zoom way out and cross the Pacific. Most are reporting levels in "counts per minute, or CPM." I guess they are saying that 100CPM would be a problem, so we're mostly seeing CPM in the double digits around the country for now.
(I should probably stop looking at this stuff, but I have been concerned about it.)

Hannah:

That's okay. So glad for your help...!

{{{hugs}}} :-)

Great Thread here, thanks Hannahbee for giving us the information, presented very well, Thanks!!
I feel so bad for the people of Japan, I can't imagine how many of these folks will come down with some type of autoimmune issue, or Post traumatic stress disorder, that is a whole lot of stress to endure at one time (earthquake, tsunami, and then the radioactive stuff)

Thanks, ladies! The devastation over there just takes my breath away. I can't believe what those poor people have had to go through. Japan passed out bottles of water for making baby formula when the levels of Iodine 131 went over 100Bq/L, so I looked it up a little more, and it looks like they recommend people drink bottled water if the levels of Iodine 131 go above 300Bq/L for adults. So I guess these are good guidelines to go by. (I wonder what the other levels of isotopes were?) So sad. What a disaster!

I spoke with my endo about Japan ..and he said the only people that should be worried or running out for potassium iodide is the people that live in the immediate areas ..and not so much worry about the RAI but worry about the isotopes and higher rates of lukemia in those areas ..

Ps my friend was living in Japan right after the tsunami he moved his fam over to hong kong and than when the reactors starting blazing he sent his family right back to the states and he was in tow a few days later ..he said its horrible out there now ..Places were running out of food etc ..My prayers are with the people there !