Radiological weapons what type of threat 英文参考文献.docVIP

Available online /content/9/3/223 Commentary Radiological weapons: what type of threat? James Mapstone1 and Stephen Brett2 1Consultant in Public Health Medicine, Westminster Primary Care Trust, London, UK 2Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine, Hammersmith Hospitals’ NHS Trust, Imperial College London, UK Corresponding author: Stephen Brett, stephen.brett@imperial.ac.uk Published online: 17 February 2005 Critical Care 2005, 9:223-225 (DOI 10.1186/cc3061) This article is online at /content/9/3/223 ? 2005 BioMed Central Ltd Introduction Are you ready for a major radiological or nuclear incident, and do you need to be? element are likely to be very small. Such a scenario is likely to present as a conventional explosive incident, with casualties presenting with blast and burn injuries. Any radiological element is unlikely to be a feature of the clinical presentation and may be picked up late. Since the end of the Cold War preparations for dealing with major nuclear incidents have declined. Unless a hospital has a nuclear reactor nearby, it is unlikely that radiological incidents will feature high on the major incident plan. Recently, health protection agencies have again started to provide guidance on these issues, following a perceived heightened threat from terrorism [1–3]. The purpose of this article is to demystify the risks and describe the extra actions that should be considered. More likely radiological threats to the population arise from accidental releases from energy production installations or research nuclear reactors, or accidents involving vehicles that rely on nuclear propulsion (e.g. satellites coming out of orbit, nuclear submarines, etc.). The highest worldwide risk to individuals is from medicine itself; nearly half of all fatal exposures have been due to calibration errors in equipment used for