Re: FOOD IRRADIATION AND THE PRESERVATION OF VIT. C -Reply

["Wesley M. Dunn" <WDUNN@brc1.tdh.state.tx.us>]

Actually, my statement was that you had to follow the licensed
protocols in that case.  If you have made license committments, you
must follow through on those.  If, however, you have been given
greater flexibility, you just follow your internal protocols.

In other words, your license restricts you to certain authorizations
and protocols.  You have to abide by those.  But for some uses, you
just need the principal investigator/authorized user to provide the
approved authorization.

The key is that the licensing agency has reviewed your procedures
(etc...) for a specified use or uses.  They haven't reviewed your
procedures to see whether you could actually do "more" or "other"
things (because that takes more time and, quite frankly, you don't
want license review to take any longer than it absolutely has to).  So
they aren't authorized.  Broad licensees with qualified radiation
safety programs, on the other hand, are given a great deal of
flexibility within their authorized protocols.

Having reviewed the credentials, programs, and histories of many
licensees/applicants, I regret to inform you that one doesn't want to
give blanket authorizations to anybody with a source to do "whatever
they think is ok".

A "for instance":  Every halloween, hospitals and clinics use their
x-ray units to verify no "nasties" are hidden in candy.  No big deal,
right?  Well, what you also may not know is that many of these
facilities have the kids in the room with the candy during the
procedure.  A little bit bigger deal.

Ok, so take the proposal to use a calibrator for this science
project.  So does the student stand around and watch?  Or maybe one
isn't available (or it doesn't do anything).  So maybe they use an
industrial radiography (IR) camera instead.  Is this really a good
idea?  Do you want to find out that some licensee you know nothing
about was using an IR camera around your child?

So, anyway.  My advise would be to find someone who knows what they
are doing and has the license authorizations to do it.

Wes

> Date:          Mon, 6 Nov 95 14:25:22 -0600
> Reply-to:      radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
> From:          "Dale E. Boyce" <dale@radpro.uchicago.edu>
> To:            Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
> Subject:       Re: FOOD IRRADIATION  AND THE PRESERVATION OF VIT. C -Reply

> Wes brings up an interesting point about authorizations.  Is it
> really necessary to authorize every protocol for an irradiator
> that is authorized for R and D?  I wouldn't think so, but I would
> certainly like to hear some discussion on this.
>
> The protocol is not actually using a radioisotope, just the radiation
> from it.  The licensee is already authorized to possess and use the
> machine.  It would be a shame if helping a high school student learn
> a little about radiation was prevented by making individuals trying
> to help go through the authorization process.  The students paper
> would probably end up being about the paper work necessary to do
> science. ;)
>
> Dale
> dale@radpro.uchicago.edu
>
*********************************************************************
Wesley M. Dunn, C.H.P., Administrator      512-834-6688
Licensing Branch                           512-834-6690 (fax)
(Texas) Bureau of Radiation Control        wdunn@brc1.tdh.state.tx.us
*********************************************************************