Please don't eat the sand :-).

I, also, in their situation, would have liked an investigation to " 
... locate the source of the radioactive particles found in the 
general
environment around the Dounreay Nuclear Establishment  ...", 
irregardless of how health affecting they might be. If you can 
encounter the odd "radioactive particle" lying around the place 
without visible means of support (even without $100k in the trunk), 
and the kids in Thurso already have more cancers than anyone can 
explain (albeit not very many extra in absolute terms) then being able 
to put a confident ceiling on such happenings would seem to be a 
priority.


        Russell


        http://www.comare.org.uk/documents/COMARE1-6reports.pdf

In our Sixth Report we summarised the work undertaken since 1995 and 
up until
October 1998, to locate the source of the radioactive particles found 
in the general
environment around the Dounreay Nuclear Establishment and reconsider 
the possible
health implications of encountering these particles. We have also 
considered whether
ingestion of these particles could be associated with the previously 
reported excess
of leukaemia and NHL in young people living in Thurso. We noted that 
if individuals
were to ingest particles with activities at the top of the range of 
those particles
already found on the Dounreay foreshore, very serious acute radiation 
effects would
occur. However, at that time very few particles had been found on the 
publicly
accessible beach at Sandside Bay and all were of them were of low 
activity. We
concluded that an implausibly large number of these particles would 
have needed to
be ingested to have given rise to the known level of childhood 
leukaemia in the area
around Dounreay. We recommended increased and regular and improved 
beach
monitoring in the area to ensure any particles coming ashore could be 
found and
removed. 

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