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Re: Is it too late?
----- Original Message -----
From: <BLReider@AOL.COM>
To: <chofmeyr@nnr.co.za>; <radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu>
Cc: <prestwic@MCMAIL.CIS.MCMASTER.CA>
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 7:31 PM
Subject: RE: Is it too late?
Chris:
I think you may have stated the essence of the argument when you said:
"The true LNT believers are (should be) in a moral quandary about safety, as
long as they believe that, in the last instance, a single photon can kill."
I don't believe so. I think they believe as Dr James Roberto said in the
incident below: "Any unintended exposure is unacceptable."
Jose Julio Rozental
joseroze@netvision.net.il
Israel
http://www.caller.com/ccct/science_technology/article/0,1641,CCCT_834_936278
,00.html
5 Oak Ridge lab workers exposed to radiation
By FRANK MUNGER
Five workers were unwittingly exposed to radiation during late-December
testing for a physics experiment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, lab
officials have confirmed.
The laboratory is still evaluating the exposures, but preliminary estimates
are that each of the workers received a maximum radiation dose of about 300
millirems - roughly the equivalent of 30 chest X-rays or three dental
X-rays.
Dr. James Roberto, an associate director of ORNL, said the radiation did not
pose a health threat but added, "Any unintended exposure is unacceptable."
An investigation is under way to determine how and why the radiation
exposures occurred at ORNL's Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility. The
incident did not occur in the main accelerator facility, but in another room
where researchers were testing a new experimental machine called an
"electron cyclotron resonance source."
He said research participants did not anticipate radiation being released
during low-power testing. But, he said, "some of those electrons were
hitting the walls of the chamber in a place where it was not expected,
causing the radiation."
The radiation was in the form of low-energy X-rays, Roberto said. The
problem was identified during a Dec. 26 test operation, but the machine had
been operated at low power on two previous occasions, he said.
All told, five people - ranging from a graduate student to the senior leader
of a lab research group - were involved, Roberto said.
The new machine is currently out of operation, pending the results of the
investigation.
(Contact Frank Munger of The Knoxville News-Sentinel in Tennessee at
http://www.knoxnews.com.)
January 10, 2002
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