Re: Film badge results

[sandy_perle@email.fpl.com]

     Interesting issue, as always. Several things to consider:
     
     1. Where are the badges shipped to you from? The transit controls are  
        used to subtract background from the personnel badges. You state    
        that they were considered damaged, and that the processor used      
        their controls. This poses an inconsistency to equate that to a     
        dose of 10 to 60 mrem, as follows:
     
        a. Exposure due to a cross country flight, west coast to east coast 
           equates to approximately 5 mrem. Therefore, if the processor     
           arrived at a dose based on THEIR control badges, those           
           maintained in their facility, a dose of 10 mrem might be         
           feasible, but the doses approaching 60 mrem seems to me to be    
           outliers.
     
        b. I suggest that you inquire of them as to what the raw readings   
           were for your dosimeters and what their controls read, and then  
           compare them to what the transit controls used in the past       
           averaged, over a period of time to obtain some good statistics.
     
     2. You state there was some damage reported for the control badges.    
        I'll hypothesize that there was also damage to the personnel badges 
        and that probably equates to the false dose. I suggest that you ask 
        for their reasons as to why they felt the controls were damaged and 
        not the personnel badges as well.
     
     
     3. Determine if their chemicals were recently changed and were there   
        any changes made to their processing and algorithm during this      
        period.
     
     
     4. Any new personnel processing the badges .. maybe it's a training    
        issue.
     
     
     5. Were these only finger badges or whole body badges as well?  Finger 
        rings (TLD or film pose all kinds of interesting issues)
     
     Just some suggestions. ASK your processor questions. That's what you 
     are paying them for.  Good luck..
     
     
     
     Sandy Perle
     Supervisor Health Physics
     Florida Power and Light Company
     Nuclear Division
     
     (407) 694-4219 Office
     (407) 694-3706 Fax
     
     sandy_perle@email.fpl.com

____________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Film badge results
Author:  radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu at Internet-Mail
Date:    10/3/95 9:01 AM


For some reason,  I'm full of questions today.

 We have just received our August dosimetry reports and there were
alot of whole body readings of 10-60 mrem ( which is highly unusual
based on our past reports).  Also we received codes on two of our lab
reports that stated misuse or damage to control badge.  This means the
company used  their own control badges which resulted in exposure
readings for all personnel in the two labs.  I remember a thread on
radsafe recently on erroneous ring badge readings.  Has anyone
experienced this on whole body film badges lately?  What could cause
damage to controls ( we do a physical inspection of the badges before
sending them to be read.)?  Thanks for inputs.
 My e-mail address: ldobbs@moore.admin.sc.edu

Lynn Dobbs
Radiation Safety Office
Univ. of South Carolina
telephone: (803) 777-5269