🚀 go-pugleaf

From article <1992Aug24.221305.7696@ucsu.Colorado.EDU>, by saastad@spot.Colorado.EDU (SAASTAD OLE):
> 
> Hi,
> You will probably dont eat smoke det. or bulbs. But a small child might
> eat something. A child playing with a smoke det. end smashing it with an
> hammer. Then eat the Am 241 source ! Not a nice scenario. Nobody seems to
> even bother to think of this !
> 
> -- 
> Ole W Saastad  
> Dept. of Chemistry University of Oslo Norway.
> Now at University of Colorado at Boulder / CIRES ,  Atmospheric Chemistry.

A child smashing a smoke detector with a hammer is going to have trouble
finding the Am-241. My smoke detectors say they contain 0.9 uCi of Am-241.
This translates into 0.26 micrograms. 
You'd be better off worrying about all the other household goodies that a 
child can get at much more easily, such as bleaches and detergents under the
kitchen sink and prescription drugs in medicine cabinets. These are a lot
easier for a small child to get at than a smoke detector that is screwed 
to the ceiling.
Just for the heck of it, ponder the probabilities of the following two
scenarios.
1. The chances of you or your children dying of cancer as a direct result
of the presence of two smoke detectors in your house (whether or not your
children eat the Am-241!).
2. The chances of you and your children dying in a fire because you do NOT
have those smoke detectors in your house.

Pete hardie@herald.usask.ca