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Re: ALARA and "what is safe enough"
>and is that true"
Take your own conclusion:
a) Safety Limits: Limits on operational parameters within which an
authorized facility has been shown to be safe.
b) Limits apply to the total exposure of individuals from all sources under
control.
c) The ICRP has introduced the concept of a constraint which is a
restriction of individual dose from a single source and is used in
optimisation. A constraint is therefore seen as a prospective upper bound to
optimisation that ensures the risk from that source is acceptable and the
total risk does not approach the unacceptable. It follows that there is no
single value of a constraint but rather that there are practice-specific or
even equipment-specific constraints. Values will be different as between,
say, a nuclear power plant and a hospital nuclear medicine diagnostic
department.
ALARA was responsible by the reductions in doses in occupational exposures
and medical exposures over the last few decades.
----- Original Message -----
From: Goff, Tom <Tom.Goff@wipp.ws>
To: 'Sandy Perle' <sandyfl@EARTHLINK.NET>; <radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu>
Sent: Monday, March 11, 2002 4:10 PM
Subject: RE: ALARA and "what is safe enough"
I remember a few HPS meetings ago a presentation where the legal "Standard
of care" is not ALARA but maintaining personnel within legal limits. Does
anyone else recall that presentation and is that true"
Tom Goff
-----Original Message-----
From: Sandy Perle [mailto:sandyfl@EARTHLINK.NET]
Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2002 2:17 PM
To: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
Subject: ALARA and "what is safe enough"
> The question should be "What is safe enough (ie ALARA)?" not "What is
> safe?".
One can not equate ALARA and "what is safe enough". They are not synonymous.
In
facility A the ALARA goal need not be the same as facility B or C or D.
ALARA was
never deemed to be considered equivalent to what is considered to be a safe
level.
Please also note that the NRC (rightly so) removed the prescriptive levels
of what
was to be considered ALARA in 10CFR20, as was once proposed.
When we as a profession start to promulgate the concept of ALARA and being
safe,
we run the serious mistake of also equating these 2 concepts as being the
basis for
litigation claims being judged valid or not. If you are not deemed being
ALARA, then
you, by your own definition, are therefore not treating your staff, or
fellow workers, as
working in a safe environment.
Please don't equate the 2 concepts. One can determine what is ALARA for
their own
facility, knowing what the environment is. One can not deem what is safe. If
they can,
I've never met that person. Unless one considers zero to be safe, and there
are
those who would state, and have stated, that zero is not safe, that there
needs to be
some level of exposure.
Food for thought?
**************************************************************************
Sandy Perle Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100
Director, Technical Extension 2306
ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Service Fax:(714) 668-3149
ICN Pharmaceuticals, Inc. E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net
ICN Plaza, 3300 Hyland Avenue E-Mail: sperle@icnpharm.com
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com
ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com
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