[ RadSafe ] (chernobyl mushrooms)Re: Radiation detectors at ports

[Emil]

Greetings,


What MDA's are you talking about?
Concentrated juices and "wild" mushrooms from the eastern Europe
would alarm?
I don't think so!
I counted on HPGe gamma spec a...huuuge 10 pound-er mushroom in
Chernobyl in 1988, just traces of Cs-137 a few pCi/g.
We eat it!!! 
After that I had whole body counts done at 15 USA plants(some counts
1 hour long) and they never showed ANY traces of Cs-137. Just
potassium-40 :-)
I just left Vegas but if I still were there, I would bet 1000:1 on:
"No port screening system would alarm on Chernobyl mushrooms".
If you worked with gamma counting systems, you would know that we are
talking about "Environmental" levels pCi of Cs-137, it is less than 1
dpm....
I can imagine scenario when somebody brought Chernobyl mushrooms and
you counted it in lab conditions with low BKG.
Field units..... I don't think so.

Regards,

Emil.


> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2005 12:57:21 -0500
> From: "Baratta, Edmond J" <EBARATTA at ORA.FDA.GOV>
> Subject: RE: [ RadSafe ] Radiation detectors at ports
> To: '??? ???    Moshe Keren' <MosheK at sviva.gov.il>,
> radsafe at radlab.nl
> Message-ID:
> 	<2DCD5C7845865A4DA541502677F6CD569BDA7F at orsnewea002.fda.gov>
> Content-Type: text/plain
> 
>  There are several products that cause detectors to register.  One
> is any
> fruit that contains potassium (Potassium-40) such as bananas. 
> Ceramic tiles
> contain naturally occurring radionuclides.  Concentrated fruit
> juices and
> 'wild' mushrooms that contain both Cesium-137 and Potassium-40 from
> Eastern
> Europe and/or the former Republics of the USSR.
> 
> 
> Edmond J. Baratta
> Radiation Safety Officer
> Tel. No. 781-729-5700 x 728
> Fax:  781-729-3593
> edmond.baratta at fda.gov
> 
> The above are my comments and not those of my Agency!
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl]
> On Behalf
> Of MosheK at sviva.gov.il
> Sent: Sunday, December 25, 2005 4:23 AM
> To: radsafe at radlab.nl
> Subject: [ RadSafe ] Radiation detectors at ports
> 
> Happy Hanuca to all,
> 
> This was posted at May 16:
> 
> "Robert Bonner, commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection,
> told a
> Senate subcommittee on homeland security that since the first such
> devices
> were installed in May 2000, they had picked up over 10,000
> radiation hits in
> vehicles or cargo shipments entering the country. All proved
> harmless."
> 
> Has any one an idea what were the radiation levels caused those
> hits, was
> cargo type considered (bannanas, fertilizers, etc.), what about
> patients
> with residues of radioactive material or implanted barchitherapy
> sources?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Moshe Keren
> 
> ISRAEL
> 




		
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