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RE: Patients trigger border radiation alarms
I believe that if terrorist want to disrupt our
security system, any detectabel radionuclide would do.
Myoview uses Tc-99m which has only a 6 hour half
life. Risks to patients and the public are low.
However, as this case demonstrates, detection is
disruptive enough. I do not think we are going about
this intelligently, e.g., we need to identify as well
as detect radiation soucres.
--- Dimiter Popoff <tgi@cit.bg> wrote:
>
> Clearly there is little if any use of such detection
> - similar to, say,
> speed limit signs every 10 metres all over the
> place.
>
> I wonder which of the short lived nuclides used for
> medical purposes is
> considered a terrorist (or whatever) danger, though.
> Why do they not set
> the devices to detect only nuclides of interest?
>
> Dimiter
>
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------
> Dimiter Popoff
> ++359/2/9923340
> Transgalactic Instruments, Gourko Str. 25 b, 1000
> Sofia, Bulgaria
> http://tgi.cit.bg tgi@cit.bg
> dimiter.popoff@firemail.de
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> > From: Susan Gawarecki <loc@icx.net>
> > To: RadSafe <radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu>
> > Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2004 1:33 AM
> > Subject: Patients trigger border radiation alarms
> >
> >
> > Patients trigger border radiation alarms
> > New devices are incredibly sensitive. Catch even
> wads of gum chewed by
> > patients undergoing radiation treatment for cancer
> > http://snipurl.com/6adq
> >
> > MARGARET MUNRO
> > CanWest News Service
> > Monday, May 10, 2004
> >
> > Jean Perley and two girlfriends were headed for a
> shopping mall just
> > across the Ontario-New York border last month when
> a U.S. customs
> > officer asked the trio to get out of their car and
> step inside.
> >
> > The officers quickly dispensed with questions
> about where they were
> > going and homed in on Perley, 64, with a hand-held
> monitor. To Perley's
> > amazement, she was emitting radiation. "I was
> dumfounded," she says.
> >
> > Then it dawned on her that she had had a heart
> test the day before. "All
> > I knew is that it was a stress Myoview, but no one
> at the clinic said
> > anything about radiation," she says. "I had no
> idea I'd light up at the
> > border."
> >
> > Myoviews involve injection of medical isotopes,
> temporarily rendering
> > people radioactive.
> >
> > U.S. Customs and Border Protection is installing
> "radiation portal
> > monitors" at every point of entry, says
> spokesperson Jim Michie. So far
> > a few hundred are in place, but more than 2,000
> will eventually be
> > installed.
> >
> > The devices can pick up radioactive molecules from
> several metres away,
> > like the ones in Perley's bloodstream as her car
> passed a roadside
> > monitor at the crossing near Cornwall, Ont.
> >
> > The guards deliberated almost two hours before
> deciding Perley posed no
> > security risk.
> >
> > Doctors say more and more people treated with
> radioactive compounds are
> > setting off monitors. Last month, Hamilton doctors
> reported a cancer
> > patient was pulled aside by U.S. customs at an
> international airport
> > after radioactive "seeds" embedded in his prostate
> set off alarms.
> >
> > Last fall, a wad of radioactive chewing gum,
> believed to have been spit
> > out by someone who had undergone treatment for
> thyroid cancer, set off a
> > radiation device scanning a truckload of
> Toronto-area garbage bound for
> > Michigan. Another load - containing a radioactive
> diaper worn by a
> > cancer patient - also tripped a monitor, closing
> the border to Canadian
> > garbage for 18 hours.
> >
> > Michie says the monitors can also pick up low
> levels of radiation common
> > to kitty litter and ceramic tiles.
> >
> >
>
>
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-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail: crispy_bird@yahoo.com
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