[ RadSafe ] Reuters Article - "Hot" patients setting off U.S. radiation alarms

[Philip Egidi]

Nice little article on Yahoo today.
PVE

By Jane Sutton 
Tue Jan 30, 8:35 AM ET
MIAMI (Reuters) - When 75,000 football fans pack into Dolphin Stadium
in Miami for the Super Bowl on February 4, at least a few may want to
carry notes from their doctors explaining why they're radioactive enough
to set off "dirty bomb" alarms. 

With the rising use of radioisotopes in medicine and the growing use of
radiation detectors in a security-conscious nation, patients are
triggering alarms in places where they may not even realize they're
being scanned, doctors and security officials say.

Nearly 60,000 people a day in the United States undergo treatment or
tests that leave tiny amounts of radioactive material in their bodies,
according to the Society of Nuclear Medicine. It is not enough to hurt
them or anyone else, but it is enough to trigger radiation alarms for up
to three months.

Since the September 11 attacks, the U.S. Department of        Homeland
Security has distributed more than 12,000 hand-held radiation detectors,
mainly to Customs and Border Protection agents at airports, seaports and
border crossings. Sensors are also used at government buildings and at
large public events like the Super Bowl that are considered potential
terrorist targets.

At the annual Christmas tree-lighting party in New York City's
Rockefeller Center in November, police pulled six people aside in the
crowd and asked them why they had tripped sensors.

"All six had recently had medical treatments with radioisotopes in
their bodies," Richard Falkenrath, the city's deputy commissioner for
counterterrorism, told a Republican governors' meeting in Miami
recently. "That happens all the time."

Radioisotopes are commonly used to diagnose and treat certain cancers
and thyroid disorders, to analyze heart function, or to scan bones and
lungs.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission first recommended in 2003 that
doctors warn patients they may set off alarms after being injected or
implanted with radioisotopes. That came after police stopped a bus that
set off a radiation detector in a New York City tunnel. They found one
of the passengers had recently undergone thyroid treatment with
radioiodine.

In August, the British Medical Journal described the case of a very
embarrassed 46-year-old Briton who set off the sensors at Orlando
airport in Florida six weeks after having radioiodine treatment for a
thyroid condition.

He was detained, strip-searched and sniffed by police dogs before
eventually being released, the journal said in its "Lesson of the Week"
section.

"I'M HOT!"

Workers in the nuclear industry have dealt with the problem for years.
Ken Clark, a spokesman in Atlanta for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
has had a treadmill stress test every two years since undergoing bypass
surgery 23 years ago.

His doctor injects him with a tiny amount of radioactive thallium,
makes him run on a treadmill and then uses a gamma ray camera to monitor
blood flow in his heart.

That can leave him slightly radioactive for up to 30 days and Clark
knows to carry a note from his doctor during that time, especially if he
visits nuclear power plants.

"I have in the past had one of the health physicists bring a little
hand-held survey meter and hold it up to my chest and lo and behold, I'm
hot!" Clark said.

"You just don't let people in and out of places when they're emitting
some sort of radioactivity," he added.

The length of time patients give off enough radiation to set off alarms
varies. For some scans, like the FDG-PET scans often used to screen for
cancer, it's less than 24 hours. For thyroid treatment with radioiodine,
it can be as long as 95 days, the Society of Nuclear Medicine said.

Dr. Henry Royal, a past president of the society who practices at the
Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at Washington University in St.
Louis, Missouri, gives patients who plan to travel cards detailing what
radionuclides were used and how much was given. 

The cards have a 24-hour phone number police can call to confirm the
treatment, "so if they're stopped, hopefully they can get the problem
solved more efficiently," Royal said. 

Nobody keeps good data on how often patients get stopped. Customs and
Border Protection spokesman Zachary Mann said it's relatively infrequent
at airports, and that passengers who set off hand-held sensors are
typically escorted to a private office for questioning that clears up
the matter. 

If there's doubt, a more sophisticated device is used to identify the
type of radiation, said Mann, who once set off another agent's portable
detector after a treadmill test. 

There were nearly 20 million nuclear medical procedures performed in
the United States in 2005, up 15 percent from four years earlier, so the
number of people who could potentially be mistaken for terrorists is
enormous. 

"We hope that people who have radiation detectors are aware of the
problem ... and that they treat people with respect," Royal said.