AN ILLUSTRATION OF RADIATION POISONING IN KAKADU ROCK ART - UBIRR:

Ubirr, Kakadu, Australia. Aug. 22, 2011,

public domain, patienttalk.org-2.

On July 28, 2015, PBS aired a documentary titled "Uranium - Twisting the Dragon's Tail." This documentary, dated 2015, presented Dr. Derek Muller as the very accomplished narrator discussing the discovery and original uses of uranium.

“We are who we are because of uranium,” Muller says. “It unlocks the secrets of the universe and reveals the nature of reality. It’s both a dream of clean limitless power and a nightmare of a silent, poisoned Earth.”  (pbs.org)

During the latter part of the program, while discussing radiation poisoning, Muller showed the accompanying Australian pictograph with the astonishing claim that it represents a human suffering from radiation poisoning. Supposedly this person is showing joint swelling, and possibly tumors, caused by radiation poisoning.  He stated that this image from the Ubirr rock art site in Kakadu, Australia, was painted as warning for people not to disturb the rocks in that area which he identified as naturally rich in uranium ores. Now this is an absolutely astonishing claim, and one that has absolutely no evidence to back it up. The discovery and diagnosis of radiation poisoning by modern medicine was a process that came at the end of a chain of events beginning with Marie Curie's remarkable discoveries, and ending with the public health disasters of tens of thousands of Japanese citizens suffering from mysterious symptoms following the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ending World War Two. In lieu of evidence suggesting that ancient aboriginal Australians had gone through some similar developmental process and chain of events leading to a similar diagnosis, I must remain skeptical.

"URANIUM – TWISTING THE DRAGON’S TAIL is written and directed by Wain Fimeri and developed and produced with support from SBS Australia, Film Victoria and Screen Australia. A Genepool production for PBS. Bill Gardner, Vice President, Programming & Development, oversees the project for PBS." (pbs.org)

All-in-all, an interesting program with an entertaining host who really should stick to nuclear science and stay away from analyzing the meaning of rock art panels.

REFERENCES:

http://patienttalk.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/2011-08-22_Ubirr-Kakadu-NT-Australia_5838_edited-1.jpg

http://www.pbs.org/about/news/archive/2015/bomb-and-uranium/