3 ms·

Being 30 minutes away from a nuclear processing facility makes the story interesting, but highly unlikely to be actually correlated. That’s just way too far. Bu

Being 30 minutes away from a nuclear processing facility makes the story interesting, but highly unlikely to be actually correlated. That’s just way too far. But perhaps there’s not much buildings between the school and the facility, so it could be plausible that for some reason some material ended up in the school. Testing for radiation at the school could give some hints, but I have doubts 20+ years after the fact they’re going to find much.

cookrn 4y ago
The article mentions that contaminated soil removed from other sites could have been utilized during construction of the school
xxxtentachyon 4y ago
The school is in a pretty dense area, less than 10 miles from NYC. If the cause were something that wasn’t unique to the building (such as proximity to a nuclear plant), I’d expect many thousands of affected
- replygirl 4y ago
  no love for staten island ;_;
  - qiskit 4y ago
    Don't worry, you are protected by your majestic landfill.
scythe 4y ago
Radiation is not a very selective poison. It will cause all kinds of cancers, not specifically rare brain tumors. In particular, leukemia is infamously related to exposure to fission products, which we know from studies on survivors of the attacks at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I actually checked the notes (hah!) I have from radbio and brain cancer didn't make the top 5 (resp. leukemia, skin, breast, bone, lung), though it certainly can happen.
- natmaka 4y ago
  Indeed. "If the radiation dose is low and/or it is delivered over a long period of time (low dose rate), the risk is substantially lower because there is a greater likelihood of repairing the damage. There is still a risk of long-term effects such as cancer, however, that may appear years or even decades later." https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ionizing-radiation-health-effects-and-protective-measures https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ionizing...
- LorenPechtel 4y ago
  This. Radioiodine can cause thyroid cancer but other than that when you're looking at a cluster of rare cancers don't look at radioactivity. On the other hand, we have had many cancer clusters that make the most sense as if they were infectious agents. Now, cancer is obviously no infectious--but we already know HPV is responsible for a lot of cancer, including strains that produce no symptoms. It's quite reasonable to think there might be other viruses that are carcinogenic but otherwise asymptomatic and thus staying below the radar.

cookrn 4y ago

The article mentions that contaminated soil removed from other sites could have been utilized during construction of the school

xxxtentachyon 4y ago

The school is in a pretty dense area, less than 10 miles from NYC. If the cause were something that wasn’t unique to the building (such as proximity to a nuclear plant), I’d expect many thousands of affected

replygirl 4y ago
no love for staten island ;_;
- qiskit 4y ago
  Don't worry, you are protected by your majestic landfill.

scythe 4y ago

Radiation is not a very selective poison. It will cause all kinds of cancers, not specifically rare brain tumors. In particular, leukemia is infamously related to exposure to fission products, which we know from studies on survivors of the attacks at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I actually checked the notes (hah!) I have from radbio and brain cancer didn't make the top 5 (resp. leukemia, skin, breast, bone, lung), though it certainly can happen.

natmaka 4y ago
Indeed. "If the radiation dose is low and/or it is delivered over a long period of time (low dose rate), the risk is substantially lower because there is a greater likelihood of repairing the damage. There is still a risk of long-term effects such as cancer, however, that may appear years or even decades later." https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ionizing-radiation-health-effects-and-protective-measures https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ionizing...
LorenPechtel 4y ago
This. Radioiodine can cause thyroid cancer but other than that when you're looking at a cluster of rare cancers don't look at radioactivity. On the other hand, we have had many cancer clusters that make the most sense as if they were infectious agents. Now, cancer is obviously no infectious--but we already know HPV is responsible for a lot of cancer, including strains that produce no symptoms. It's quite reasonable to think there might be other viruses that are carcinogenic but otherwise asymptomatic and thus staying below the radar.