Re: shipping violation?

[BLHamrick@aol.com]

In a message dated 06/08/2000 7:23:53 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
Glen.Vickers@ucm.com writes:

<< This is indeed a quandry.  If the person wiped the entire package with one
 smear, they'd have no way of knowing what the size of the contaminated area
 was. >>

This is true, but keep in mind that even if the contaminated area were 1 
square centimeter, they could average over 300 square centimeters (and would 
have gotten15 dpm/cm^2, for the 4440 dpm they found)...Given that they 
reportedly wiped 2990 square centimeters, the entire external surface area of 
the package, it is likely they actually wiped more than 300 cm^2...

This is one of those cases where it is conceivable that someone else taking 
the wipe using the best possible procedures could have found 300 cm^2 with 
more than 6600 dpm, but weighing the available information, it appears 
unlikely.  Keep in mind as well, this was a package containing Tc-99m...I 
realize, the regulations don't distinguish on the basis of hazard per 
isotope, nevertheless, this is a consideration in response to an incident.

Barbara L. Hamrick
BLHamrick@aol.com
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