[ RadSafe ] News note: FOUR ACCIDENTALLY IRRADIATED AFRICANS HAVE ARRIVED FOR TREATMENT IN FRANCE

[John Jacobus]

A co-worker passed this along.  Does any one have any
other information?

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--FOUR ACCIDENTALLY IRRADIATED AFRICANS HAVE ARRIVED
FOR TREATMENT IN FRANCE following the discovery that
an iridium-192 source used by certification firm
Bureau Veritas, or BV, for industrial X-ray
examinations had in July irradiated a yet-unknown
number of people. In a communique, France's Institute
of

Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety, IRSN, said
the Ir-192 source had slipped undetected out of its
shielding in BV's Dakar office and was then flown by
DHL to BV's office in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. Experts
from IRSN are working to estimate the level and
distribution of their doses. But IRSN's director of
human radiation protection, Patrick Gourmelon, told
Platts clinical symptoms indicated that one BV
employee in Abidjan had received a dose of several
Gray. 

If necessary, he said, the man could be treated with a
revolutionary stem cell therapy applied successfully
this year to victims of two other irradiation
accidents, in cooperation with the French Army's
health service at the Percy Military Hospital outside
of Paris. IRSN experts will also help BV evaluate the
doses received by all other people who came in contact
with the source, he said.  



+++++++++++++++++++
May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion. 
Dwight D. Eisenhower  

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird at yahoo.com

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