After being given radioactive supplements cancer patients familys can be at risk for about a week, depending on the dose. Once the treatment is given, the patient is "contagious" and can spread dangerous radioactive diseases to everyone around them. So what's the problem? Can't the patients stay in the hospital for a few days until they are better and no one is at risk? No. They can't. In 1997, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission repealed the requirement that these patients had to be quarantined in a hospital. In fact, most hospitals don't even have the option to stay, seeing as they have no areas to have them stay.
The most at risk people are the pregnant women because it affects the fetus. Where should these people go? Well they could go to a hotel and put no one at risk right? Well maybe. What happens if the maid that comes to clean the room is pregnant? She and her baby could be at great risk.
I feel it is very important to have a place in the hospital available for these radioactive people to stay. They need a safe place to be and not in danger others. If we have evidence that it is dangerous for other people to be around, it seems obvious to me that they should, at the very least, have a place like that to stay. Maybe even be required to stay for a certain amount of time. Why should people be put in danger when it is so easily avoidable? That is a risk I don't think we should take.
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