AW: [ RadSafe ] Restrictions on radiation symbols in India story of borrowed glassware

[parthasarathy k s]

Dear Friend,

Your story of falsely labelling contaminated glassware reminds me of  some incidents  in which  normally insignicant  quantities of radioactive material  caused avoidable embarrassment.

One of my friends was a good analytical chemist. During the seventies he measured Po-210 in Indian and foreign cigarettes and tobacco. He published the results in the Health Physics Journal. I assembled for him an alpha particle scintillation counter based on ZnS(Ag) phosphor.

He used standard radioanalytical  techniques such as wet ashing the samples and using silver foils to deposit Po-210.

After finishing the work he left the glassware used in a fume cupboard. A year or two later I gave a project to one of our graduate students. He was asked to measure Po-210 in fresh samples of cigarettes.It was primarily a repetition of the work  done earlier. But the student was expected  to include all observations in a report .

When I looked at the results I was shocked to see that the Indian cigarettes he used contained nearly two Bq of Po-210 in a gramme of tobacco, The student recorded everything faithfully. He did not find anything wrong, as he then had no knowledge about the order of activity expected.

On further investigation, we found that the student used some glassware in which my colleague prepared samples spiked with Po-210 to standardize the procedure!

Over the past few years, several such incidents occurred. I  narrate them occasionally while giving lectures. Though I find time to contribute popular science articles to leading newspapers in India, I did not write down my experiences.  If I write them down, some one may find my scrap book interesting!

With warm regads
K.S.Parthasarathy


   
----- Original Message ----
From: Franz Schönhofer <franz.schoenhofer at chello.at>
To: parthasarathy k s <ksparth at yahoo.co.uk>; John Jacobus <crispy_bird at yahoo.com>; radsafe <radsafe at radlab.nl>
Sent: Friday, 29 June, 2007 11:22:49 PM
Subject: AW: [ RadSafe ] Restrictions on usage of radiation symbols in India

Dear collegue,

Thank you for describing the Indian rules on the use of the radiation
warning signs. In my country and I would believe all over the world we have
very similar rules. 

However I would like to tell a story from my past time as a student (several
decades ago) in order to liven up the sometimes all to serious RADSAFE
forum: When working for my PhD-thesis it was quite common, that pipettes,
beakers, other glassware and even instruments were "loaned" by fellow
students who were eager to finish their thesis and tried to avoid the time
consuming official way to get the equipment necessary. Unfortunately they
forgot to return the equiment...... What did we do? We marked our equipment
as "radioactively contaminated". I assure you, that this helped!

Best regards,

Franz

Franz Schoenhofer, PhD
MinRat i.R.
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Wien/Vienna
AUSTRIA


-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] Im Auftrag
von parthasarathy k s
Gesendet: Freitag, 29. Juni 2007 18:45
An: John Jacobus; radsafe
Betreff: [ RadSafe ] Restrictions on usage of radiation symbols in India

Dear John,

In India,Rule 14 of Atomic Energy (Radiation Protection) Rules 2004 is
titled "Radiation  symbol  or warning signs" and specifies where the symbols
can be used 

Rule 14  Radiation symbol or Warning sign:- 

(1) The radiation symbol or warning sign
shall be conspicuously and prominently displayed at all times -
(a) on externally visible surfaces of radiation equipment, and containers
for
storage of radioactive materials; packages for radioactive materials and
vehicles carrying such packages;
(b) at the entrance to the room housing the radiation generating equipment;
and
(c) at the entrance of controlled area and supervised area.
(2) The radiation symbol shall not be used for any purpose other than those
mentioned in these rules.
(3) The specification of the radiation symbol or warning sign shall be as
prescribed by the competent authority, by order for that purpose.

the Atomic Energy Act 1962 and rules may be downloded from www.aerb.gov.in











		
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