Re: Radioactive Boy Scouts and Smoke Detectors

["L. R. Cartwright (Larry)" <physics@SCNC.CPS.K12.MI.US>]

This incident is not an urban legend, although some of the facts appear to
be getting obscured by faulty journalism.  You can find the original news
reports (i.e. when the feds swooped in to deal with the situation) in the
archives of the Detroit Free Press, among other primary sources.  The
Harper's article, upon which the Reader's Digest condensation was based,
had photographs of the cleanup effort.  This kid apparently collected more
stuff than just Am; he reportedly had a fairly nasty accumulation of
thorium, radium, etc.

Best wishes,

Larry

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Larry Cartwright
Physics, Physical Science, Internet Teacher
Charlotte High School, 378 State Street, Charlotte MI 48813
<physics@scnc.cps.k12.mi.us> or <science@scnc.cps.k12.mi.us>

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On Mon, 26 Apr 1999, Hugh Haskell wrote:

> The details given in the Reader's Digest article lead me to believe that
> this is an urban legend. Clearly the author of the article understood
> almost nothing about nuclear physics (except the scary stuff) and couldn't
> sort out the facts from the rumors.
[ ...snip ...]