Is your hotel room radioactive?

That hotel king bed might not be as clean as you once thought. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission opened up an investigation this week querying how difficult it has been for hospital patients to spread radioactive contaminants across the nation, including on public transportation and in hotel rooms.

The problem stems from a particular treatment given to thyroid cancer patients, a dose of radioactive iodine that stays in the system and can emit a low level of radiation after the subject leaves the hospital. In turn, this emission can contaminate public places such as buses, hotel rooms and other highly trafficked locales.

Usually the NRC has strict rules on where one can travel after radiation treatment, but in a recent case, a patient left the hospital in New York and headed straight for an Atlantic City hotel — leaving atomic traces of radioactive iodine scattered along the way. Radiation sensors picked up the patient in the Lincoln Tunnel and set authorities hot on the trail.

There’s more info on the NRC’s investigation and input from congress over at Yahoo’s AP Newsdesk. Until then, make sure you bring your Geiger Counter with you next time you’re headed to a hotel.

Are airport x-ray machines bad for your health?

We all know from wearing those iron aprons at the dentist that x-rays are not good for you. Radiation is dangerous, and radiation poisoning can lead to very serious health problems and even death.

Radiation poisoning usually occurs when someone is exposed to a heavy amount of radiation for a short period of time, but in rarer cases, long term exposure to small doses can also be damaging. So, should frequent fliers be worried? What about pilots and cabin crew?

Millimeter-wave imaging-technology units, which are currently operating in 19 airports, don’t produce the kind of radiation we get from x-rays, but backscatter units like this do. Following the terrorism attempt on Christmas, the US has just ordered 150 backscatter screening systems (like the above).

Is it dangerous? Probably not. Rodale reports: “According to TSA, the amount of radiation you’re exposed to during a two-second millimeter-wave scan exposes you to radio-wave radiation that is 10,000 times less powerful than radiation levels that pulse from a cellphone.” They also note that the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurement “found that a traveler subjected to at least 2,500 backscatter scans per year would barely reach the Negligible Individual Dose.”

Wait. Barely? That’s not really what we wanted to hear, but 2,500 would come to seven scans per day, every day. At that point, you’re not a traveler, you just have a weird hobby.

The concern that no one can shake (besides that of privacy) is that of machine stability and maintenance. Backscatter scanners do have the capability of doing harm; they just won’t if they’re functioning properly. Rodale adds, “If you feel uncomfortable going through advanced-imaging airport body-scan machines, know that you do have the right to an alternative search, although it may be in the form of a more invasive pat-down-type search by a security worker.”

For more information on radiation poisoning and radiation sickness, visit MayoClinic.com.

[via Rodale]