[ RadSafe ] Luggage/package X-ray Screening SafetyStandard (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Gary Isenhower]

That is pretty funny.  It also shows that a clever idiot is a match for
almost any amount of design safeguards.  Perhaps that is a clue to how the
reg is written and enforced - it precludes only accidental irradiation.
Otherwise they would have to phrase it something like, "Registrants shall
not hire operators who might get bored and deliberately irradiated
themselves."

I would guess that deliberately exposing yourself or someone else is a
violation of a different regulation, perhaps under a different agency, but
there's a limit to how far such regs can go.  There's not much point in
making regs like:

  You shall not hit your head with a hammer.
  You shall not jump off tall buildings.
  You shall not drink bleach.

Some things are self-correcting.

-Gary Isenhower

On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 2:43 PM, Robert Atkinson <robert8rpi at yahoo.co.uk>
wrote:

> There have been cases of airport workers lying on the belt and x-raying
> themselves when things were quiet!  I don't have a reference (I see both
> both aviation and radsafety incident reports) but this was an offical
> incident report, not a web story. There was also a recent (UK) TV news
> report of an infant being inadvertantly passed through an airport x-ray
> machine.
>
>  Robert Atkinson MRAeS.
>
>
> Cary Renquist <cary.renquist at ezag.com> wrote:
>
> The units' cabinets appear to be designed so that there is sufficient
> space before and after the primary beam that one could not insert an
> extremity directly into the primary beam unless one was laying on the
> belt (or perhaps built like an orangutan). It looks like if you stick
> your arm through the flaps you will get unshielded scatter exposure, but
> not exposure from the primary beam.
>
> The baby carrier would be the exception that could not be easily handled
> by a physical/mechanical design -- there would need to be some sort of
> sensor-interlock mechanism (perhaps some sort of infrared sensor).
>
> Cary
>
> ---
> Cary Renquist
> RSO, Eckert & Ziegler Isotope Products
> Office: +1 661-309-1033
> cary.renquist at ezag.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On
> Behalf Of Wes Van Pelt
> Sent: Sunday, 16 March, 2008 07:42
> To: 'Walt Cofer'; 'Michael Borisky (Civ, ARL/ADLO)'; radsafe at radlab.nl
> Subject: RE: [ RadSafe ] Luggage/package X-ray Screening SafetyStandard
> (UNCLASSIFIED)
>
> Walt and All Radsafers,
>
> I just read the FDA rule on cabinet x-rays. (Sec. 1020.40 Cabinet x-ray
> systems.) One section puzzles me. Think of airport luggage scanning
> x-ray machines. It seems that a human body part can enter the chamber
> and be exposed to the beam. One could stick an arm or head thru the
> flaps and be exposed. In the extreme, a baby in a baby carrier could
> ride thru the machine and get exposed. Yet, the FDA regs clearly state:
>
> "(3) Ports and apertures. (i) The insertion of any part of the
> human body through any port into the primary beam shall not be
> possible."
>
> Does anyone know how this is resolved? Perhaps I am missing something.
>
> Best regards,
> Wes
> Wesley R. Van Pelt, PhD, CIH, CHP
> Wesley R. Van Pelt Associates, Inc.
> a
>