Is radiation sickness contagious?

[MMM]

Can radiation poisoning be spread from person to person?

[Koir]

My uninformed opinion is no.

[protheus]

You would need to be shinning like a star to manage to do some harm around you. There is even a worker, survivor from Chernobyl* that still has in him considerable quantities of Plutonium and Cesium and none around him (family) had any case of cancer or other illnesses.

[RobinMask]

I'll repeat what I said in another thread, which is I'm not an expert but I'd seriously doubt it. If it was contagious then no one would get medical treatments for cancer or x-rays, or if they did then they'd need to be in isolation lest their radiation pass onto others too . . . or at least that's my logic. I searched online and couldn't find anything to say that it was contagious.

[Serbiangirl]

doesn't make sense to me, so no

[robcardiv]

the infected person would die long before giving off enough of anything to contaminate anything else.

People still visit charnoble like its a tourist attraction, with no noticed side effects.
Japans situation isnt even remotely close to charnoble.
You have no reason to worry.
Even if your drinking the water in designated safe areas.

[RealJames]

it's about as contagious as being really stupid...

every living organism, and some non-living, emits a certain amount of radiation,
you actually get more radiation just being next to people

oh maybe this can be used to make the fear mongers seek complete isolation! ;D

[godwine]

Originally Posted by robcardiv

the infected person would die long before giving off enough of anything to contaminate anything else.

People still visit charnoble like its a tourist attraction, with no noticed side effects.
Japans situation isnt even remotely close to charnoble.
You have no reason to worry.
Even if your drinking the water in designated safe areas.

I don't think MMM is worry... you will see thread like this all over the forum just to gather opinion....

and your statement about Chernobyl is only partially correct, the tourist thing only happen recently, 25 years AFTER the incident. People are still advised to keep their hand in their pocket and don't touch anything when they are doing the tour....

And yes, I think it can be passed on from person to person, but as previously stated, the amount of radiation emitted by the one person as the "carrier" will have to be lethal enough to kill this person instantly....... in a way, i guess you can get it from the corpse????

[JojoBizarre]

I really don't know.

My only guess would be no, I don't think so.

If yes I think the first person would have to be really sick with radiation poisoning...

[Nyororin]

Radiation sickness cannot be spread. Radiation contamination, however, can. If there is radioactive material on the body or clothing, it can be passed on to another person. The contaminated material may not be causing harm to the contaminated individual, but it has the potential to be ingested/inhaled and cause harm to others.

This is why hospitals are asking those who are coming from contaminated areas to be properly decontaminated. Most hospitals don`t have the facilities to decontaminate patients, so they are asking them to go to decontamination centers (mostly set up at shelters) so that there is no risk to the doctors or other patients. (In response to the other thread about being "turned away" because of radiation.)