Internal v. skin

[eport@nwu.edu (Eli A. Port)]

Regarding Kent Lambert's original post (16 Feb 1996 (Digest 826)), "One 
should keep in mind that a microcurie of an electron emitter delivers a much 
smaller dose when it is in the body that it does when it is on the the skin. 
 And skin contamination is much more likely than an uptake.  Therefore, the 
most critical concern has to be skin contamination."

And js_dukelow's 2/16/96 query, "Am I missing something here?"

If you read this with your RSO hat on,  it does make sense!  Let's take a 
look at P-32:  The dose conversion for 1 microcurie/cm2 on the skin is 8 
rem/h.  The dose conversion for 1 microcurie ingested is about 10 mrem CEDE. 
 Therefore, in just over six hours of a 1 microcurie/cm2 skin contamination 
event (assuming no removal) you have an overexposure!  On the other hand, 
(no pun intended) the ingestion event only delivers 1/600 of the ALI.  Of 
course we could get out our pencils and sharpen up the analysis, but it 
won't have much effect on the bottom line -- the skin contamination event is 
typically much more likely to cause a regulatory overexposure than an 
ingestion or inhalation event at a biomedical R&D lab.

This is my opinion and not necessarily the opinion of my employer.

glenn_sturchio@merck.com


ELI A.PORT, CHP, CIH, P.E.
RSSI
eport@nwu.edu
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