Re: MDL and Dose Effects - opinionated response -Reply

[Charles Willis <CAW@nrc.gov>]

Byron:

A dosimeter doesn't protect anyone except in the sense that it meets a regulatory
requirement.  The information it provides may be a consideration in actions taken to protect
the wearer and/or the employer.  Employer-provided dosimeters generally are intended to
measure occupational exposure from external sources, in part for the purposes of compliance
and demonstrating compliance.  If an individual wants to know his/her total dose, it is up to the
individual to provide and use another dosimeter, to participate in internal dosimetry programs,
and probably most important, to take action to determine the doses from radon at home and
elsewhere.

By the NRC regulations, medical radiation exposure (whether needed or not) does not affect a
person's occupational exposure status.  One way of looking at this is to postulate that
occupational doses generally are so low as to be much less harmful to the individual than
would be exclusion from a job (in some sense the best job available to the individual or it
would not be taken). 

Of course the employer is at risk.  About 20 percent of the employees can be expected to die
of cancer and some fraction will result in legal actions.  This percentages would not be
discernable altered by either hiring or rejecting recovered radiation therapy patients.  On the
other hand, the employer also could be at risk for discriminating against such patients.  Thus,
our lawyers live quite well.