Re: Ignored consumer goods with Ra-226.

[Kerembaev@cs.com]

In a message dated 2/2/00 11:33:39 Pacific Standard Time, 
sbd@co.disp.mindef.nl writes:

<< Could anybody explain to me why the existence of consumer goods with radium
 paint is constantly ignored by many (inter)national authorities?
  >>

I can see two reasons:
There are always these two reasons. ;-)

Economical. 
Who will pay for the surveys, clean up, surveys, clean up and again surveys. 
D&D. W.W.II museums as well as the rest of the museums are on the border of 
their economical survival.....

Political. 
Normally, new regulations should be created with the implementation 
mechanism. It is easy to implement the Regs when you have a leverage. What 
kind of leverage could be with "unlicensed" veterans? Do you really think 
that they do care about those probabilistic models and a "new evidence"? 
Another thing when the site/base is decommissioning and a museum is moving to 
a different place or disolves. These are the only, to my knowledge, cases 
when W.W.II relics with Ra-226 have been removed from the museums. There has 
been done a some "regulatory" work on resells (pawn shops) of the consumer 
products with Ra-226. Actually, I am, my self, looking for a set of wrist 
watches with Radium dials. Does anybody want to sell?
I think, it is easy to handle a store which has a commercial license with the 
local authorities.
My guess, in three-five years, when there will not be many W.W.II veterans 
left around... .....  Citation will start changing. Next generation, will 
choose less exposure with less memory. Of course this is only my opinion, 
based on LNT.

Best regards and a Happy Thursday to everyone!

Emil.

Why people have three different languages; writing, spoken and thinking?
Why can't we write what we say and tell what we think?

"Unknown Author" 
************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html