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Article: Patients trigger subway radiation detector
Another good story
-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
3050 Traymore Lane
Bowie, MD 20715-2024
E-mail: jenday1@email.msn.com (H)
Patients trigger subway radiation detector
UPI Science News
Published 1/28/2002 5:49 PM
WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- Patients who receive routine medical procedures
using radioisotopes could trip a new detection system in the Washington
subway system designed to catch radioactive material entering the Capitol's
public transportation network.
After a routine bone scan, Alexandria, Va. resident and United Press
International editor Laura Chatfield said she was confronted by Washington
D.C. Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority police on her way to work
Jan. 23. Radiation detection equipment had picked up the low-level
radioactive isotope medical personnel had injected into her body earlier in
the day.
Implemented to prevent terrorists from releasing hazardous radioactive
material into the subway system, the detectors are catching cancer and other
patients in their dragnet.
"One out of every three people that go into a hospital get a nuclear
medicine scan. There are hundreds of thousands of people running around with
radioactive material in their bodies," said Dr. John Poston, a nuclear
engineer at Texas A&M University in College Station and chairman of a
National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements committee that
recently drafted a report on the threat of nuclear terrorism to Congress.
The WMATA is the only subway system in the country that has radiation
detection technology up and running. According to San Francisco Bay Area
Rapid Transit police commander Clark Lynch, most metropolitan subway systems
would like to have similar technology in place, but funding simply is not
available.
"We're not at all less susceptible to an attack -- it's a funding issue. As
soon as the detection equipment is cheaper and commercially available, we'll
all be looking into getting a system set up," he said.
The Washington D.C. metro system was the first to test the detection system
because it received federal grant funding, said Lynch.
Washington metro spokesperson Lisa Farbstein said the authority is unable to
publicly comment on transit security issues.
Radiation detection technology is extremely sensitive and can detect even
minute increases in radiation above background levels. Patients who receive
radioisotopes like Iodine-131 and Tecnesium-99m can easily trip the
detection systems even though they are giving off less radiation than a
microwave oven, said Battelle Laboratory nuclear physicist Dr. Robert
Schenter.
"It's important to remember that no one's getting harmed by this," he said.
Still, for patients who have been told by their physician their nuclear
medicine procedure is harmless, being singled out by subway police after
setting off radiation alarms is disconcerting to say the least. Passengers,
too, may be put ill at ease by the prospect of sharing a train car with a
radioactive fellow passenger.
"The amount of radiation that you're allowed to walk out of a hospital with
-- without any instruction - is really alarming," said Poston, who recently
received a dose of Technesium-99m for a routine heart exam.
"I could transfer that radioactive material to my wife or grandkids simply
by touching them," he said.
It's comforting for some to know the Washington metro is taking aggressive
steps to reduce the threat of a terrorist attack in the city's subway
system, but experts say the likelihood of a nuclear attack occurring there
is extremely slim.
"Because it's a confined place, it's not ideal for distributing radioactive
material," Poston said. "If you wanted the most bang for your buck, you'd
want to spread it over a large, open area not a confined space like a
subway."
"Unless a nuclear bomb explodes there, it's very unlikely that anyone would
be killed by radiation," agreed Steve Mussolino, a health physicist with
Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. "But if you're a terrorist, the
goal is to scare people and you could definitely do that."
(Reported by Koren Capozza from San Francisco)
Copyright © 2002 United Press International
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