George Washington's Ghost

“Had atomic devices been tested in the desert of northern Sonora one would expect to find the presence of trace elements of isotopic Strontium-90, Iodine-131 and 133 in the surrounding landscape and in the tissue of living organisms. It is my understanding that of these, Strontium-90, or in scientific shorthand, Sr90, is the most dangerous. Sr 90 is a so-called bone seeker which biochemically mimics Calcium, coincidentally the next lightest of the group 2 elements in the Periodic Table. Like Calcium, after ingestion the body routinely excretes about seventy to eighty percent of the dose; unfortunately, all the rest, typically over twenty percent of the remaining Sr90 accumulates in bone and bone marrow. In all cases at least one percent of the total dose ingested lodges in blood and soft tissue. It is believed that minimal concentrations of Sr90 in the bones massively increases the risk of developing bone cancers, and cancers in adjacent soft tissue, or full-blown leukaemia. Sr90 attacks the bone marrow and consequently, destroys the body’s ability to produce the white blood cells necessary to fight infection. In the immediate aftermath of an atomic explosion, anybody breathing in air, or consuming food or fluids heavily contaminated by Sr90 might easily die of something as innocent as the common cold, within say, a week.”

The President and General Santa Anna were trying to tune out their mounting horror.

“Sr90, like I131 and I133 remain dangerous for a long time. The biological half-life of Sr90 inside bone and tissue is about eighteen years.”

“Half-life?” Rodrigo queried softly, mainly for the benefit of the other men in the room.

“Yes, after eighteen years half of the original contaminant survives. Eighteen years later one-quarter of the original dosage, and so on. The mammalian risk factors remain, therefore, in statistically significant concentrations in the general environment for many tens, or in the case of Sr90, perhaps, fifty or sixty years and do not revert to the normal, background levels of contamination for hundreds of years.”

“Is there nothing that can be done for the victims?” Santa Anna asked, his voice dull.

“The papers I have read speculate that calcium citrate, taken in large enough doses might help the body resist Sr90 take-up. The theory is that bone and bone marrow can only absorb isotopic contaminants at a given rate. By inducing biological competition, calcium citrate will therefore, at least reduce Sr90 assimilation and, possibly, reduce the total level of contamination. The dosages of calcium citrate suggested are a thousand milligrams daily – for both adults and children – immediately after contamination and, thereafter five-hundred milligrams per day for at least three weeks. Logically, in addition to calcium citrate prophylactic doses of vitamin C, that’s ascorbic acid, may help to regulate the production of healthy bone protein and promote the formation of white blood cells. The recommended dosage of Vitamin C is three-hundred milligrams a day for a month and one hundred milligrams daily thereafter for several months.”

“How effective are those measures likely to be?” Santa Anna inquired, dreading the answer.

“We have no way of knowing, General. It may be that people in the peak of health may benefit, and others not. Unfortunately, even if by some miracle one survives more or less uninjured in the proximity of an atomic explosion, one might easily already have suffered a fatal or disabling dose of X-ray or gamma-ray radiation.”

President de Soto tried and failed to prevent a groan escaping his lips.

“Would such a death be immediate?”

“No, Your Honour. One would die within days. High doses of ionising radiation destroy all the internal biological mechanisms that support life. A victim dies from the inside out, with every organ disintegrating, causing heavy bleeding from every orifice. This pathology would be consistent with the symptoms described to Don Rodrigo by his Navajo scouts.”

“Oh, God,” the President breathed.

“You said that there were two other major contaminants indicative of atomic explosions, Professor?” Santa Anna reminded the physicist.

“Yes, after Sr90, the next most dangerous fallout isotopes are I131 and I133. Both collect in the thyroid gland in the neck. The literature suggests that mature mammalians exposed to these radioactive isotopes probably infer a massively elevated risk of a wide range of cancers in later life, and because the thyroid gland regulates growth, children exposed to these isotopes are likely to be stunted – or possibly afflicted with giantism, the literature is ambiguous about this – and excessively prone to infantile cancers. It is thought that potassium iodide, taken in daily doses of one-hundred-and-thirty milligrams for several months after first contamination, may inhibit the build-up of the two isotopes in the thyroid.”