Re: Uranium in the Glaze of Fiestaware

[Schoenhofer <schoenho@via.at>]

At 09:40 07.06.1996 -0500, you wrote:
>I follow the thread of this subject with interest, some amusement and a lot
>of concern.  When I was young (a long time ago) my family had a large set of
>fiestaware.  Of all of the seven or eight colors in that set, only the
>orange one was radioactive (I discovered much later).  However, we did not
>know about that at the time.  We used the set routinely for lunch and dinner
>(supper).  When the set was not in use it was stored in a cabinet in such a
>manner that no one could have been exposed to any radiation from the orange
>plates and cups and saucers.  So the exposure only occurred when the set was
>in use, about an hour a day for fifteen or twenty years.  None of my family
>suffered any ill effects from either the radioactive material, if any, that
>got into the food, or the radiation from the surface.  I estimate in
>retrospect that I, and each member of my family,  might have received a
>total effective dose equivalent over the twenty years of at most 75 mrem,
>and a skin dose of 730 mrad.  These doses cannot be harmful!!!!!!!!!!!  My
>concern is that we are talking about this at all.  Fiestaware is neither a
>hazard nor a risk.  No one should be told not to use it.  We do ourselves
>and the public (to say nothing about the legislators and regulators) a huge
>disservice when we even suggest using something like fiestaware is at all
>risky.  Maybe the food one eats from the fiestaware might be risky if one
>ate too much.  But the doses one might get from using fiestaware are too
>small to even think about.  Simply because the surface dose rate is
>measurable doesn't mean that the dose one might get is significant.  Dose is
>what counts, not dose rate.  But you all know that.  I guess most of this is
>opinion, but it is informed opinion I believe.  Al Tschaeche xat@inel.gov
>
>============================================================================

I am not afraid of the dose from any uranium glazed item. I have myself a
collection of beautifully uranium-stained glasses, which I do not use for
drinking - not because I am afraid from their radiation, but because they
are almost all more than 100 years old and Iīm afraid they could get
broken... I once went into a antiquity shop where I had seen a beautiful
green glass. I told the vendor to put it aside for me, because I would come
back to check it with my contamination monitor for radioactivity. Since he
didnīt understand I told him I would check it, because if uranium was used
it would be radioactive: He was somehow frightened, but he got even more
confused, when I told him I would only buy it, if it really was radioactive!
It was and I bought it.


B U T :

Isnīt the main principle in radiation protection : A L A R A ? As low as
reasonable achievable? What is easier to achieve than to use tiles and
tableware that does not contain uranium? All the beautiful colours which in
older times only could be achieved by using uranium can now be produced by
other means, so there is really no necessity to use uranium any more.

As an Austrian, I do not have this problem: The use of uranium in glaze and
tiles is forbidden since long in Austria. 

Uranium is not only a radiotoxic element, but it is also chemically toxic
when ingested. (I have no figures at hand, how much can be leached by for
instance vinegar.) In Austria lead containing glazes are also forbidden
because of chemical toxicity.

Has anyone thought of workers who produce the glaze, tiles and tableware?
What doses might they have been exposed to? Probably to higher ones than the
user of the finished product, who might receive negligible doses!

Franz Schoenhofer
Federal Institute for Food Control and Research
Vienna, AUSTRIA
Schoenhofer
Habichergasse 31/7
A-1160 Wien
Tel./Fax:	+43-1-4955308
Tel.:		+43-664-3380333
e-mail:		schoenho@via.at