Re: Business airflights = occupational exposure?

[Al Tschaeche <antatnsu@pacbell.net>]

Ron L. Kathren" wrote:

> Sorry, Al, but as Health Physicists we should be concerned with exposure
> from all occupationally related activities.

My goodness, how did you get the impression that I, as a CERTIFIED health
physicist, am not concerned with exposure from all occupationally related
activities?  Or, is that not the thrust of this sentence?  When  exposure
conditions may be conducive to high and/or high unexpected doses ( > 5 rem/yr or
10 rem single dose) and the potential doses are controllable (which is almost
all of the time for high doses) (note: I'm not saying here that people actually
receive such doses, just that under certain circumstances such doses are
possible), then, no matter what the source, if persons are exposed because of
their job, whether or not the radiation is part of their primary job, health
physicists should be concerned with measurement, control and recording of such
exposures.  Also with all the other ancillary things we do, such as education,
to provide a safe working radiation environment.

However, when there are no unexpected high doses possible and the expected doses
are significantly below high doses, I think the amount of money and time to
reduce doses far below the already low doses is a waste.  Of course, if
something simple can be done that doesn't cost much, to reduce unnecessary (and
we'll have a delightful discussion about what this word means in this context)
dose, then maybe it should be done.  But individual circumstances need to be
considered.

> And, it matters not whether one
> believes in the LNT or not; as HP's we are obliged to look at all sources of
> occupationally related exposure. and evaluate them accordingly.

As stated above we may look, but may not do anything about it.

> It may well
> be that doses from business travel are, in most instances, of sufficiently
> small magnitude to be ignored.  But then again, the very frequent flier
> (particularly SST) and  the pregnant flight attendant,  to name two, may well
> merit further consideration.

First we must agree that the doses they get are a real, measurable, observable
and tangible health hazard.  Want to tackle that one?

SST doses are not much above subsonic plane doses because, even though the dose
rate is higher, the time in flight is shorter.  And, I don't think there are
many people paying the SST fares all the time to qualify as frequent SST
flyers.  The way we are going, I don't think we'll ever have mass SST flying in
the next 100 years.  The anti air pollution and sonic boom people will see to
that.

> And, I take exception to your statement that
> ALARA does not play a role -- it certainly does, and it may well be that
> ALARA considerations dictate that doses from occupationally  related travel
> should be ignored in most or even all cases.

Oh true, true.  ALARA evaluation will clearly show ignorance is bliss in this
case.

> I also take exception to your
> statement that collective dose has no application:  perhaps you need to take
> a(nother) look at NCRP Report 121.

Have you not been hearing Roger Clarke lately?  I think NRCP report 121 makes
many statements with which one may reasonably disagree (I know you reviewed
it.).

> But we do agree on one thing, old friend, viz. that we might get more bang
> for the buck by studying medical exposures and their consequences.

Thanks for finding something we agree on.  I suspect we agree on lots more than
just this.

> PS  Didn't you watch the game on this Super Bowl Sunday????

I'm not into American football much, especially when the only thing that really
matters is the last two minutes or less.  I like the "other" football better.

> All work and no
> play, you know!

All I ever do is play.  There's no point in doing anything else.  It's all in
the definition of the word.

Kindest regards.  Al Tschaeche antatnsu@pacbell.net

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