[SideburnsOfDoom]

> If putting it against your torso would mean serious health effects in minutes, how would a critter "eat" it and get more than a few meters away?

a) by moving more than 1 meter per minute.

b) You should not read "serious health effects" as "instant death" where radiation is concerned. There is usually a lag time between radiation exposure and consequences. At low doses, this is "likely cancer, years later". But I think you'd still call that "serious health effects" if it happened to you.

At higher doses the consequences are "radiation sickness, days or hours later", which is plenty of time to disperse the source.