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CNN Live Today

Interview with Dr. Jim Augustine

Aired June 11, 2002 - 11:14   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We move back on to the topic that had so much of our attention yesterday, and that is the subject of dirty bombs. And a dirty bomb uses conventional explosives to spread radioactive material across a wide area. It is designed to spread panic and chaos.

Our medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, is at an Atlanta hospital to talk about the effects of radiation, what happens if you're exposed and what hospitals are doing to prepare for the threat -- Sanjay, good morning, once again.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Daryn.

Yes, we're in a decontamination room here, which is a room that can induce a little bit of panic and anxiety, no question. But before we get there, let me talk a little bit about the health effects of these dirty bombs, these radiation bombs.

People like to divide into zones to think about how far away from the initial blast someone might be. If you're in the outer zone, which would be a few hundred feet away or a few blocks away, depending on how explosive the bomb was or how much radiation material it contained, you might actually get some cells -- some radiation going into your cells. From there it gets into your nuclei and the DNA actually gets altered.

And this gets kind of sciency (ph), Daryn, but basically those cells at the most primitive location actually get radiated, and that affects future generations of cells, which can lead to cancers. The most common being thyroid cancer. About 3,000 cases of that was seen after Chernobyl. That can be treated using surgery and also can be prevented using potassium iodide if taken before or immediately after.

If you're closer in, you might get radiation sickness. Radiation sickness might make you sick, might make your bone marrow effected as well, which can decrease your immune system. Think of someone who has high doses of radiation after cancer therapy. That's the same sort of thing you might see with radiation sickness.

Certainly people who are closest in might get a lot of gamma radiation affecting their body. That could cause a lot of cellular disruption; that could possibly cause death. And that is something a lot of people are concerned about. But probably not as big a concern as people are making about it. I'm sitting here in the decontamination room at Crawford Long Hospital with Dr. Augustine, who is director of the emergency room. And they were prophetic enough to think about a decontamination room a few years ago here, right?

DR. JIM AUGUSTINE, CRAWFORD LONG HOSPITAL: They were prophetic because the risk was there that we would have decontamination problems for chemicals and then biological weapons. We didn't think really about nuclear episodes at the time.

GUPTA: You know one of the things that strikes me, you're a former firefighter as well, I should point out. And you know if something like this goes off in a city, firefighters, EMS, HazMat crews are all going to be going there, but no one really knows that it was a dirty bomb, right?

AUGUSTINE: We have find out quickly if there's anything in the bomb other than explosive power itself.

GUPTA: But all of those people are at risk, the people who are going in initially.

AUGUSTINE: Yes, we have to make a very quick decision and whether to go in or whether to set up a perimeter and get everybody out.

GUPTA: And what goes into that decision-making?

AUGUSTINE: Well we have some sensors that we can use to detect radiation, chemicals, and then it's good judgment by experienced people.

GUPTA: That sounds like tough decisions. It's going to be helter-skelter there. What do you tell people to do when you get to the scene?

AUGUSTINE: We get to the scene, evaluate, determine if they're scene hazards. Keep people out if we need to keep people out, and obviously evacuate the civilian population away from it.

GUPTA: OK. And a lot of people are going to end up in this room. Explain this room to us, if you would.

AUGUSTINE: Right. They may be decontaminated in the field or they may have to come into the hospital and be decontaminated.

GUPTA: And that involves just hosing them off with a big hose, or what's that?

AUGUSTINE: Hopefully not. Sometimes we can do decontamination without using water. We give people special scrubs to put on outside and ask them to clean themselves off themselves. If they were low- level exposure, that would be fine.

In situations where they might have higher levels of contamination on their body, we will have to wash them off somewhere. We would prefer to do in the building in a decontamination room like this one.

GUPTA: Right. And, you know, a lot of experts are saying this is going to happen. A dirty bomb is going to explode somewhere in the United States. You're sort of an expert in this area. Are we ready for this?

AUGUSTINE: I think we're as ready as we have been for it. After World War II, we set up a lot of civilian defense and other systems to handle radiation problems. We're cycling back now and having to be prepared for it. I think we're much better prepared than we were in the Cold War days.

GUPTA: And there you have it, Daryn. A lot more prepared. Certainly this room would be evidence of that. But it's still a very scary thing, although probably not many people would be effected by it physically -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Well good to know that that hospital is just up the road here from CNN. That's a little bit comforting, at least for us down here at CNN Center. Dr. Sanjay Gupta at Crawford Long Hospital here in Atlanta, thank you so much.

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