Radioactive Necklace!

 "If thy brother wrongs thee, remember not so much his wrong-doing, but more than ever remember that he is thy brother." - Epictetus

 I need to keep that stoic quote in mind.  People never cease doing others wrong, and it's hard to overlook the nasty and petty nature of it all...

I saw this article today and had a good laugh about it.  The Dutch government has banned a number of consumer products - "Anti 5G necklaces found to be radioactive".  

As a guy who used to play around with various radio-isotopes, I always find this kind of stuff interesting - as in how the hell did modern consumer goods that are radioactive get sold without any kind of warning label?  

You can buy consumer goods that contain radioactive materials.  Lantern mantles and smoke detectors come immediately to mind - but these things are required to have a warning label.  These radioactive items are also not intended to be worn by the consumer - unlike the necklaces in the article.  Radioactive stuff in close proximity to your body es no bueno!

I saw no claims of "Anti 5G technology" for these products on the seller's websites that I visited.  That 5G hysteria seems to have been mostly in the mind of the article's author.   Rather, these retailers and the buyers of these products seemed interested in health benefits.  The advertisements say that these items produce negative ions, which they claim are good for you.  

Disclaimer:  I cannot agree or disagree with the claims of the health benefits of negative ions, as I've done no research on the topic, nor do I intend to.  I *do know* that ionizing radiation from radioactive decay is bad for you!

Here is the website for one of the products mentioned in the article:  Magnetix-Wellness.

Here is another one:  Quantum Pendants.  According to their website the pendants "contain deep earth minerals that you find in volcanic lava".   An example of the pendant is below.

Although the article never got around to mentioning what the radioactive material was, we are most likely dealing with NORM or  Naturally-Occurring Radioactive Material.   This would be minerals that contain Uranium or Thorium ore, and thus are slightly radioactive.  I see no reason to freak out over these bits of slightly radioactive jewelry, but there's also no reason to expose yourself unnecessarily to radiation.  So the sales ban the Dutch have enacted is probably a good thing.  No point risking cancer for a nebulous and unproven health benefit.