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Radiological And Nuclear
Devices
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Terrorist use of radioactive
materials or a nuclear device constitutes a plausible threat. Such an incident could occur in one of
five ways. The medical consequences
will be dependent on the type of device used in a terrorist event.
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A. Simple radiological device.
This is the deliberate act of spreading radioactive material without
the use of an explosive device. An
example would be the placement of a high activity radioactive isotope in a
public place exposing numerous individuals to various levels of radiation.
Sealed sources could also be used to expose individuals near the source.
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Two examples could be used
in this context, although these were not terrorist events. They were the result of theft of
sources. In the first case (Brazil),
a hospital therapy source was stolen by two scrap dealers. The source, 1375 Ci of Cesium-137 was
broken up and dispersed. The incident
was not detected for 15 days. It
resulted in 249 people being contaminated, four people dying, and 112,800
people requiring monitoring. The
medical response and clean-up phases took several months to complete. In this case there was both an exposure
and a contamination problem.
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