What Happens If You Get Bitten by a Radioactive Spider?

[Ubiquitous]

By Katy Waldman

The Amazing Spider-Man, which retells the origins of Marvel�s
wall-crawling superhero, hits theaters Tuesday. In the comic, a bite from
a radioactive spider gives Peter Parker strength, agility and�in some
versions of the story�the ability to shoot webbing out of his wrist. What
really happens to someone bitten by a radioactive spider?

Not much. Or rather, not much aside from the usual symptoms of being
fanged by an arachnid: itching, redness, soreness, and
sometimes�depending on the type of spider�more serious symptoms,
including unconsciousness or death. The radioactivity, though, would be
irrelevant. The world is awash in radiation. We�re exposed to about 3
millisieverts of it a year, mostly from the sun and naturally occurring
radioactive gases like radon. That�s not counting doses from medical
procedures such as CT scans (6 mSv), mammograms (.4 mSv), or X-rays (.1
mSv); from airline travel (.01 mSv); or from smoking (53 mSv per year).
The amount of radiation contained in the venom from a single spider bite
would likely fall between .00003 and .000003 mSv�an inconsequential dose,
about as much radiation as you�d absorb from eating a banana, which
contains the radioactive isotope Potassium-40.

Radioactive creatures do exist, notably in the forests surrounding the
damaged Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the Ukraine, as well as in Sweden
and Finland, where plumes of radiation fell after the 1986 disaster.
(Being irradiated, or exposed to radiation, is not the same as being
radioactive, which means that your body contains radioactive matter.) But
even a large radioactive creature, such as a wolf or bear, wouldn�t have
enough radioactivity in its venom or saliva to pose a health risk
(although the bite itself could still be deadly).
Advertisement

Even more common than radioactive animals are radioactive plants, which
absorb nuclear fallout from the air or polluted groundwater. Though an
insect bite won�t give you radiation poisoning, consuming too many
compromised flora and fauna will. In Belarus and the Ukraine,
contaminated cows and steers eat �clean� hay until the concentration of
hazardous isotopes in their bodies dips below the safety threshold. And a
population of Swedish roe deer recently alarmed hunters when they showed
above-average levels of radiation after feeding on especially
radiation-concentrating mushrooms.

Radioactive animals exhibit a higher than usual rate of birth
abnormalities; birds near Chernobyl have been shown to have smaller
brains, and insects there are frequently born discolored. Still, even the
most potent radioactive isotopes (unstable forms of strontium, plutonium,
cesium, and iodine) are not capable of causing Marvel-grade mutations, as
radiation proves far better at killing cells than at transfiguring them
in some useful way.

Reports of people being bitten by radioactive animals are few and
far-between. Several years back, however, a man working to clean up the
Chernobyl grounds was attacked by a radioactive stray dog. He was
immediately hospitalized�for rabies.