Dose to others from medical uses of radioactivity, and a PS onPaducah

[Jacques.Read@eh.doe.gov]

A colleague  has been carrying a pocket alarm/dosimeter around for years,
visiting various DOE facilities.  It has never alarmed.  While traveling, he
keeps it in his briefcase.  While awaiting a flight at a regional airport
recently, the alarm went off in his briefcase whenever a elderly gentleman
walked by.  I compared his experience with the RADSAFE discussion a week or so
ago about misadministration of 131I, in which 500 microcuries had been injected
instead of 100 microcuries.  By my rough estimate, 500 microcuries would given a
dose rate of only 0.03 mr/hr at six feet.  Presumably the gentleman was not a
thyroid patient.  Did I botch up my dose rate estimate, and are there other
medical procedures that could give tens of mr/hr at six feet?

P.S.  To answer Al's question: The depleted uranium from the Paducah gaseous
diffusion plant is believed to have been contaminated by the use of improperly
decontaminated steel storage cyclinders to receive the UF6 from the product end
of the cascade.  The DU has typical Pu content of the order of  0.01 to 0.001
Becquerels per gram of uranium.  The cyclinders had previously contained
recycled uranium of a few parts per billion Pu content.

Jacques Read
jacques.read@eh.doe.gov



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