Service in the USA does expose you to experiences you would not have in the UK. Over a quarter of a century ago, I was an exchange officer in the USAF Surgeon General's Department. We worked in Dilbert-style cubicles. For a while, my cubicle was among the bioenvironmental engineers (BEEs) and I was able to share some of their challenges. This episode involved two items to which I had hitherto had little exposure—radiation and chewing tobacco. Radiation is always a sensitive subject and when that radiation involves a military base, the stress levels can be quite high. The BEEs had just finished dealing with radiation found in the bomb store on a base that was being closed down—the store had been built into the side of a granite mountain and the radiation proved to be from naturally occurring radon. So the complaint from a garbage dump (recycling centre) that trash (rubbish) from a USAF base was radioactive did attract some considerable attention. After considerable searching, the offending item was found to be a discarded can of Doctor Pepper. The subsequent investigation eventually found that a patient at the base hospital was being treated for thyrotoxicosis with ~131I. After his treatment, he had consumed a can of Doctor Pepper, placed a wad of chewing tobacco in his cheek and had wandered round the hospital completing his administration while occasionally expectorating into the empty tin. He then discarded the tin into a convenient rubbish bin. What I found impressive is that the garbage dump screened for radiation and found emissions from a small can in a truck full of waste. As ~131I produces both beta and gamma radiation over a half-life of about 8 days, it is likely that it was the gamma radiation that was detected as beta particles are stopped by a thin sheet of metal. I was also impressed by the BEE detective work in unravelling the story but less impressed either by the lack of guidance given to the patient regarding disposal of waste containing body fluids or by his lack of adherence to that guidance. And I met chewing tobacco again when I flew in an F-16 fighter aircraft with a captain who chewed tobacco and expectorated into a jar that he wedged on the floor of the cockpit. Only in America.
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