Midyear talk

["Stabin, Michael" <michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu>]

There was an excellent talk at the midyear given by Gary Kramer of

Health Canada. In the context of discussing air monitoring for internal

dose assessment, he gave an overview of interesting changes probably to

be proposed by the ICRP by 2005, as gleaned from a number of

presentations he has seen. Among the interesting highlights (to me,

anyway):



Item (1) A tiered system of response related to dose:

Above 500 mSv - intervention required.

20 -500 mSv - 20 mSv is the recommended occupational dose limit, and

radon remediation and countermeasures operate in this region.

0.3 mSv - Planned public dose limit.

0.01 mSv - below this, protection is considered optimized, and no action

is needed.



Item (2) New values for wT - perhaps a reduction in the value for

hereditary effects.



Item (3) wR for protons reduced from 5 to 1, a continuous function

applied for neutrons (instead of the current step function).



Item (4) Applied radiation protection standards for species other than

humans.



Now these are my impressions of Gary's slides, please don't yell at him

if I have any of the details or interpretations a bit wrong, and

remember as well that these are just his interpretations of what the

ICRP may propose. The 0.01 mSv "no action" level and the interest in

active environmental radiation protection (instead of the passive, "if

we've protected humans, we've protected the environment" approach) were

particularly interesting to me. 



Gary also noted that there is exactly one country now in the world that

has not adopted ICRP 60 dose limits and methodolgy (as well as SI

units); we all know who that is. I call on my US colleagues to consider

turning in their AAA card (Absurd American Arrogance) and ending this

international embarrassment soon.



Mike



(need I say, my views only, not of my employer, not as list moderator,

merely list member, etc.?)





Michael G. Stabin, PhD, CHP

Assistant Professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences 

Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences 

Vanderbilt University 

1161 21st Avenue South

Nashville, TN 37232-2675 

Phone (615) 343-0068

Fax   (615) 322-3764

Pager (615) 835-5153

e-mail     michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu 

internet   www.doseinfo-radar.com



 

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