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LJV wrote:...there is a track record of recalling Chinese products that have proven to be radio active here in the US...

Very interesting and scary, do you have any references, links or something?

Hi-
With the increased scrutiny at the borders with large freight items, radioactive issues are taken VERY seriously.

As someone who lives right at a border, I can use a great example, If you are having treatments for prostrate cancer with radioactive treatments, you now must have a TSA approved form filled out and signed by your Doctor if you are crossing in and out of the U.S. I know of an older man-75 years old-who went across the border not knowing of the border scanning tools used these days ( and not knowing of the rules for radioactive treatments--he didn't have a Doctor's slip)--the authorities actually pulled him over, frisked him, and strip searched him--even at his age!!!

The border hassles are a nightmare these days. I highly doubt that large metallic objects like tubas coming in from China don't have every and all possible security checks done to them.


Just my 2 cents worth....

Mark

PS. Now if talk about seafood caught off the coast of Japan, yes-- that would scare me.....

Mark is right... The small army of the NYPD have the same gear, and have stopped many people for radioactivity from medicinal uses. There are many reasons I won't buy a Chinese tuba, but radioactivity isn't one of them!

LJV wrote: That waste has to go somewhere.

What better place than to dump it on your enemies?

Anyone have access to a good quality Geiger counter?

Before any sellers decry this as "rubbish," there is a track record of recalling Chinese products that have proven to be radio active here in the US.

Do you have evidence of the Chinese connection? So far as I can see in all the reports, these things came from India. People seem to be "guessing" that they came from China, but what's the evidence for this? And if it is from China, don't we really need to blame the Indians for "fencing" this stuff to our stores? Thanks for any additional information.

Also, don't you have a Geiger counter? I know they're a little pricey, but surely a small expense in terms of the level of concern. Cheap ones are around $150 and really decent ones around $500. You can get quite a good one from Edmund for $269. Given what you spend on tubas, this expense is trivial. Then you wouldn't have to ask if anyhone has a good quality Geiger counter.

goodgigs wrote:I've quoted this article and it reminds me of my friend who was going to have radiation therapy but first had to have his teeth x-rayed.
They INSISTED then he ware the lead vest during those dental x-rays !

Sorry, but I don't get the inconsistency or irony you seem to sense here. Radiation therapy is typically not "whole body" radiation (if it is, it generally clobbers your immune system and requires a bone marrow transplant). So there's nothing at all odd about requiring use of a lead vest for dental x-rays in order to protect other parts of the body (including your gonads) from stray radiation (actually, how much stray radiation there is nowadays is another question, but there are still "best practices" to be conformed to). And in anything other than whole body radiation, strong precautions are taken not to irradiate other parts of the body. If you're zapping someone's tumor with a 6 MEV x-ray, that's NOTHING like a dental x-ray (except that it is an x-ray).

Radiation therapy is typically highly targeted nowadays, with very tight beams focused on the problem area(s). Much more constrained (and more expensive) than what is used for dental x-rays.

So what the hell are you saying here?

And is there something wrong with being radio active?

goodgigs wrote:So what the hell are you saying here?

I'm saying that this is a non story that the news media blew up to get readership, that's what.
My friend had Hodgkin’s lymphoma in the 1970s back when they probably did zap every inch of him.
...
My point is that we shouldn't worry about everything we are told to worry about just because we are told to !

"Probably"? Well, okay. Neither you nor I (nor, probably, at this point the patient) can tell whether parts of the body (typically the testes in males) were shielded during TBI. And it might well depend on the staging of the disease. So it is possible that shielding during dental x-rays was silly. Possible.

But none of this came through even remotely from your posting.

I have, by the way, also had Hodgkin's Disease. Hence my knowledge of what is involved with the radiation. Maybe a hint about the 30+ year-old context of your remark would have made more sense of it -- because it certainly doesn't make any sense over the past fifteen or more years. And certainly there is some silliness in standardized medical procedures.

But honestly, I didn't have a clue what you were actually trying to say in your posting. Your restatement of it I am in complete agreement with.

LJV wrote:"Huffington" on this.... Or just spend 30 seconds on Google.

BTW, Sorry to lessen the warm fuzzys that folk get from their gubment, but less than 3% of cargo from "Most favored nations" trading countries is inspected...

"Baaaaaaaaaah..."

Great response. Still don't have a Geiger counter, do you? See, the thing is ... if you really BELIEVE what you're saying, you really NEED a Geiger counter. And it has nothing to do with how you feel about what the "government" tells you.

Oh, and the Huffington Post article cited says NOTHING about where the stuff came from -- except that it was "shipped from India" (NOT China). Or did I miss that? Put up or shut up, eh?

Radiation?
Helps vibrato.

LJV wrote: I do believe it would be interesting to test these Chinese instruments as I said in the first post. You're all worked up and spinning yourself into some sort of self-righteous frenzy trying argue a nonexistent point. Put or shut up what? Like I said, it would be interesting... I also never stated where the tissue boxes where from. 2+2= 12 in your world, huh? Now go kick your dog.

Oh, cut it out. Your original post tried explicitly to pin the "Bed, Bath, and Beyond" issue on the Chinese, and China is the only potential source of those products mentioned in that posting -- even though all the news reports mention only India as the source.

You don't call for the testing of Indian horns. You don't call for the testing of Russian horns. Just Chinese horns -- on the basis of some radioactive household products imported from India. It doesn't get much goofier than that. (Never mind the hundreds of thousands of machine tools from "communist" China that have come into the country over at least the last ten years and are being widely used.)

No, you only mention the "Chinese products". And the fear that it is our "enemies" who are dumping this stuff on us. At least try for a little honesty when you get caught with your pants down.

Personally, I don't kick dogs -- my own or others. But the suggestion is revealing.

ghmerrill wrote:Personally, I don't kick dogs -- my own or others. But the suggestion is revealing.

MartyNeilan wrote:

ghmerrill wrote:Personally, I don't kick dogs -- my own or others. But the suggestion is revealing.

I think it's the hair that slows me down. A lot of sauce helps.

But I hold the line with dogs.

Good research to find that NRC report. But all the report says -- as did all the news stories -- is "The shipment originated in India with a port of entry at Newark, NJ and was shipped via common carrier to its final destination in California." It unfortunately contributes nothing more.

So I'm afraid we really don't seem to be any further in establishing the great Chinese conspiracy (as opposed to say, the great Indian conspiracy since all the information I can find on the Tatara Group indicates they seem to always ship out of India -- and from a port very far from China). Further research shows it is in fact an American company -- i.e., established and incorporated in 2011 in New Jersey -- and owned by one Rahul Kaykal.

Now I'm sure that even more research will show that Mr. Kaykal is a Chinese agent who created this company in New Jersey and assumed an Indian name for his own nefarious purposes. I'm sure it will. Or that Mr. Kaykal is merely a puppet of his Chinese overlords (or maybe his New Jersey overlords -- Mafia? No! Chinese mafia!!) Yup, all the evidence is certainly pointing directly to China instead of to India. You just have to look at it very closely to see that. And that's good because "Indian horns don't effect [sic] this community much". So since they don't, let's fear the Chinese rather than the Indians. If you want to fear an "enemy", it might be smarter to fear the right one -- the one that's actually doing something to you. But hell, do whatever's easiest and requires the least thought.

I am radioactive. Fear me!

Seriously, a Geiger counter measures ionized particles but fails total you how dangerous said radiation ishttp://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geiger_counter. If it's alpha, it cannot penetrate. Beta/gamma... Run for the hills... Radiation energy is very important.

*

I always regret trying to reasonable in this venue. I know that's not what it's for, but one last time ...

It's reasonable to fear the Chinese because they are becoming a global economic and financial power. It's reasonable to fear the Chinese because they're a significant nuclear and military power. It's reasonable to fear the Chinese because they're building sophisticated attack submarines. It's reasonable to fear the Chinese because we're so in debt to them and because of how they act in international financial markets. It's reasonable to deplore the nature of the Chinese government and its control of the Chinese population. All of that is reasonable.

It's NOT reasonable to fear (or to suggest we should fear) the Chinese -- or their tubas -- because of an incident involving an Indian-owned New Jersey company's importation of housewares from India. And if you talk to any of the people here importing instruments from China you'll learn that at times their shipments are delayed when the containers are opened and inspected at the port. Yet every couple of weeks LJV feels the need to trump up yet another "fear the Chinese" campaign of this sort. In the immortal words of a great American, "There he goes again." Enough already.

ghmerrill wrote: You don't call for the testing of Indian horns. You don't call for the testing of Russian horns. Just Chinese horns -- on the basis of some radioactive household products imported from India.

If I had to guess, the reason Chinese horns are of particular interest here is because there appear to be a particularly significant number of them arriving on our shores.

Hi-
How about 'testing' Japanese instruments made in 2011 onward for radiation--line up the new YamaYorks for testing......

Mark

Guys, I'm going to bail out at this point. I have to confess that a primary reason I've been prolonging his is a wholly self-serving one. I'm about half-way through the second chapter of a book I'm doing and have been wringing my hands about how to get some good contemporary examples of poor argumentation and classic fallacies and faulty reasoning -- instead of using the old musty ones that are usually found in treatments of that sort. And for that, this exchange has been wonderful. In one example it illustrates many of the major faults in reasoning that need to be covered, and in a way that's easily accessible to introductory students in a context they can understand and that isn't contrived.

Sincerely, this has been great and provided me with just what I need in that regard. Thanks. (And thanks also to those who actually were being reasonable and not committing those fallacies. So the scenario includes that side as well.)

jonesmj wrote:How about 'testing' Japanese instruments made in 2011 onward for radiation--line up the new YamaYorks for testing......

Same question but slightly different context - if you love that YamaYork enough to pay for it, then you probably love it enough to take the radiation hit too.

It's another thing when you buy a cheap instrument for the kid just to save money - in that case, it might be possible to factor risks and medical expenses in, and decide how radioactive the instrument can be before it outweighs the immediate cost advantage.