Screenshot from RDTN.ORG -- an independent radiation monitoring network.
When news broke of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Americans became uneasy about radiation drifting across the Pacific Ocean. Social media networks like Facebook and YouTube were buzzing with comments, ranging from reasonable curiosity to full-blown paranoia.
The Environmental Protection Agency has been monitoring radiation levels, and assuring the public that they are safe – but some people felt the need to purchase their own radiation detection equipment. Tim Flanagan operates GeigerCounters.com, where consumers can usually purchase retail Geiger counters online.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Flanagan. “In the normal course of a year, we might sell 1,000 Geiger counters – and in the first five days since the disaster broke, we’ve probably sold 500.”
In one week, Flanagan sold six months worth of inventory. So much, in fact, that he ran out. GeigerCounters.com had to stop taking orders.
“But in that increased demand, the supply of devices that were accessible in Japan (to the people who probably needed it the most) was diminished,” commented Marcelino Alvarez, one of the people behind RDTN.org. RDTN is an upstart radiation monitoring network that allows civilians to find real-time data about radiation levels around the world. In the two weeks since it was launched, the site has already earned a reputation for crowdsourcing, but Alvarez finds that term somewhat inaccurate.
“We’re specifically asking for people to contribute that might be more inclined to consider themselves as a ‘citizen scientist,’” Alvarez said, “which is an individual who either through professional or hobbyist means approaches the problem of capturing radiation data in an academic way.”
RDTN compiles readings submitted over the Internet by a variety of sources, including civilians who have set up their own radiation monitoring stations. But that data is checked before being published. They’re reaching out to members of the scientific and academic communities who can apply a peer-review model to the readings.
“We are not nuclear experts, and we are not health scientists. So for us, the reason why we wanted to have that academic layer and the reason why we thought that was so crucial – the average person does not have the ability to look at a microsievert and say, ‘What does this mean for me?’ So,” Alvarez said, “without having context for what those radiation levels mean, people can make misinformed decisions.”
After Fukushima, California drugstores sold out of potassium iodide (or KI) – a potentially hazardous drug that protects the thyroid gland from absorbing radioactive iodine. According to Jessica Wehrman, from the American Association of Poison Control Centers, there have been at least 33 calls to poison control centers from people suffering negative side effects after exposure to KI. Symptoms include irritability, dizziness, drowsiness, nausea, vomiting, and tachycardia – a condition that causes the heart to beat faster than usual.
At this point, self-medicating with potassium iodide (KI) is highly inadvisable for residents of the United States. While radiation from Fukushima has reached American shores – leading to contaminated milk samples from San Luis Obispo, California, and Spokane Washington – government officials continue to assure the public that current radiation levels are not high enough to pose a threat to human health. That data has been confirmed by independent, civilian sources like RDTN.org, RadiationNetwork.com, and the Online Geiger Counter at BlackCatSystems.com.
Dave Brooksher, FarWest.FM, Phoenix.
