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Re: another intentional misuse
----- Original Message -----
From: Debby Steva <dps3c@virginia.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2000 2:53 PM
Subject: Re: another intentional misuse
Three comments on this subject:
Jose J. Rozental
joseroze@netvision.net.il
Israel
==========
First Comment:
You got the point, any colleague that understand the philosophy of radiation
safety has no doubt to understand this topic. Let's take the meaning of
Safety Culture.
Safety Culture means:
a) policies and procedures that needs to be established to identify
protection, safety and security as being of the highest priority. These
procedures and conditions should be revised as necessary in the light of
experience;
b) problems affecting protection, safety and security be promptly identified
and corrected in a manner commensurate with their importance;
Protection, safety and security need to receive the attention reasonable by
their signifcance. However, it is clear that a system of source security
comprise measures to prevent loss, theft, damage or unauthorized use of
sources. This is especially important for multiple individual sources or
particularly hazardous sources
> I think some of you are missing Mr. Karam's point. Intentional misuse
will never be 100% preventable in a free society such as ours and you are
dreaming if
>you think it can never happen at "your organization". All of your
institutions are
> at risk - probably small risk - and that is the point - how much effort
>and millions of dollars do you spend to further reduce that small risk -
isn't that
>what everyone on Radsafe constantly rails against - the costs assoc. with
reducing those
> already low risks assoc. with LNT doses?
>
> D. Steva
==================
Second comment:
This is a very interesting point. Many mistakes in radiation safety, in
developing countries is due the fact of the difficulty to understand manual
in english.
One example, was the Radiological Accident in Soreq, Israel, in 1990
occured at an industrial irradiation facility. The IAEA investigation team,
concluded:
"The senior technician had a good knoledge of English but the other three
technicians had only an elementary knowledge. It was concluded after the
accident that the lack of a translation into Hebrew of the operating manual
and safety instructions had contributed to the operators' inability to cope
with unusual events. The same applies to the lecture notes from the training
courses, which were also available in English only"
----- Original Message -----
From: Grimm, Lawrence <LGrimm@ADMIN.UCLA.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, February 29, 2000 11:05 PM
Subject: RE: intentional misuse - proposed "cures"
> Hi all:
>
> My two cents on problems in a university...
>
> I wholeheartedly agree with Andrew Karem, and I saw a few good points
> amongst the "give-em-hell" crowd. The question arose regarding the root
> cause. I have an opinion on that topic.
>
> In my years at universities, a disproportionate number of problems have
> involved Chinese nationals. I believe there are two reasons for this.
Both
> reasons can be applied to other nationalities for which English is a
second
> language.
>
> First is the language/communication problem. It is my experience that the
> Chinese nationals have the toughest time understanding English of all the
> foreign nationals. The RSO has to be very careful when educating them and
> make sure that they have understood the radiation safety concepts.
Carefully
======================
Third comment
As mentionated above Safety Culture means attitude to protection, safety
and security to discourage complacency. Does not matter, in general sense,
on who regulates any licensee. The point is in the organization, it is the
management's responsibility to recognize the significance for protection,
safety and security of his activities, and to promote a radiation safety
culture aimed at developing and maintaning an attitude of rigour and
throughness towards safety and security that permeates the entire
organization.
Regulatory Authority is responsible for ensure regulatory control over
practices
>There seems to some confusion about who regulates Columbia University. =
>It is not NRC, but the NY City Dept. of Health. NRC has relinquished =
whatever authority it had over agreement materials in NY State under the =
agreement signed by Glenn Seaborg and Nelson Rockefeller in 1962. The =
City Health Dept. was an original party to that agreement.=20
************************************************************************
Clayton Bradt, CHP <raldrich@nysnet.net> phone: 518/457-1202
Assoc. Radiophysicist fax: =
518/485-7406
NYS Dept. of Labor
Radiological Health Unit
Blg.12, Rm 169
State Office Campus
Albany, NY 12240
************************************************************************
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