You’re suggesting that we shoot hot neutrons at someone’s head just for shits and giggles and imaging purposes?
Isn’t there a saying in nuclear chemistry that goes:
You’re given an alpha emitter, a gamma emitter and a neutron emitter. You have three things you can do: throw one away, swallow one, and hold one in your pocket. Which goes where?
And the correct answer is something like: you swallow the gamma emitter, you hold the alpha emitter in your pocket and you don’t throw away the neutron emitter, you run away from it instead?
ETA: turns out it’s the radioactive cookie test
You’re given four cookies: alpha, beta, gamma and neutron.
You can throw one away, eat one, hold one in your hand and put one in your pocket.
To minimize exposure:
Alpha goes in your pocket - is easiest to shield, pants are great at blocking alpha particles
Beta goes in your hand - is easily shielded, but we don’t have anything better than skin and air
Gamma goes in your gullet - we don’t have a lead apron, so swallowing it or holding it doesn’t make much difference in terms of exposure
Neutron you throw away - because it’s even harder to shield than gamma, and is biologically worse
