Fed Express worker received 1.5 rem from Ir-192 source

[goldinem@SONGS.SCE.COM]

Can anyone out there (someone from REACTS?) tell us how clinicians can

accurately measure exposure to 1.5 rem based on blood tests (lymphocyte

chromosome aberrations?)  If the worker is about 25 years old, his/her

lifetime dose has to be close to or above 7 or 8 rem anyway.  I thought

that "natural exposure" would contribute to enough chromosome aberrations

that dose estimating is difficult below 5 or 10 rem.



--A FEDERAL EXPRESS WORKER RECEIVED 15 MSV (1.5 REM) FROM AN Ir-192 package

during transit of the iridium package at Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport

near Paris in early January, results of medical examinations have

indicated.

Authorities had concluded in March that the package had begun to leak only

at the end of its trip, in the U.S., a conclusion the new French finding

appears to contradict. Officials of French nuclear safety authority DGSNR

said today they had informed colleagues in Sweden, where the package

originated at Studsvik AB, and the U.S., its final destination, of the

findings of the blood tests on two FedEx workers, one of whom was found to

be contaminated. At the time of the accident, which was rated at Level 3 on

the International Nuclear Event Scale, U.S. authorities said the driver of

a

delivery truck on the final leg of the package's trip to a New Orleans

suburb had received a dose estimated at 3.4 milliSievert.



Eric M. Goldin, CHP

<goldinem@songs.sce.com>



************************************************************************

You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To unsubscribe,

send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu  Put the text "unsubscribe

radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail, with no subject line.

You can view the Radsafe archives at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/