Radiation Safety News Story Anecdote

[rick_strickert@pc.radian.com]

And then there's the Seattle Post-Intelligencer -

On Sat., 10 Feb 1979, their *top* (across the entire front page) headline
(in 5/8" bold type) read "Dangerous Cobalt Vial Missing".  The text started
with "A potentially lethal, radioactive vial of cobalt-60 was reported
missing yesterday from Cordell Middle School in Shoreline and police
believe the rarely used substance was stolen."  According to the report,
school officials last saw the "liquid cobalt" just before Christmas.  The
King County police said "the substance could have been gathering dust at
the school for as long as 15 years but was still strong enough to penetrate
substances."  A school district official said he was "shocked because
cobalt is rarely used in the schools today and came in during the exotic
days of science learning.  It's a carry-over from then."  The article
pointed out that "burglars may have mistook the substance for moldable lead
or something valuable."

(At the time there was no Sunday edition.)

On Mon. 12 Feb 1979, The Seattle P-I had a story on p. A9 (Headline -
"Vial of Cobalt Still Missing") that the "vial of dobalt-60" (sic) was
still missing from a storage locker at the school and warned that the
substance "in a pencil-thin vial and wrapped in a thin sheath of lead"
could cause serious injury or death upon prolonged exposure.

On Tues., 13 Feb 1979, the P-I had a story on p. A5 with a small headline -
"Cobalt Vial Harmless".  The short story noted that, according to the state
radiation control office, the cobalt-60 source was harmless and was used to
demonstrate how a geiger counter can measure levels of radioactivity.  The
vial had been purchased without a license because, as the P-I explained,
"its strength was below the hazard factor [and it] would have decayed to
less than one percent of its original radioactivity in the past nine or 10
years", according to tests on sample vials of the same age that were done
in a state laboratory.

(Considering everthing to date, it probably would have just confused the
issue to bring up the difference between Co-57 and Co-60.)

Rick

Richard G. Strickert, Ph.D           |  "Errors using inadequate data
Radian Corporation, Austin, TX       |   are much less than those using
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Internet: rick_strickert@radian.com  |     - Charles Babbage (1792-1871)
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