Re: Medical Exam

[Al Tschaeche <antatnsu@pacbell.net>]

Andy Hull wrote:

> Aside from the pragmatic reasons why someone employed at a regulated and
> monitored facility should inform its radiation protection personnel of
> medical procedures involving radionuclides, I keep wondering about the logic
> of making a close accounting of employment related doses while ignoring
> comparable ones from other sources.  Having been around for a while, I
> recall that when in the 1960s then AEC Commissioner James Ramey advocated
> the latter, his proposal elicited a strong negative response from the Health
> Physics Society and his idea died aborning.   With 20/20 hindsight, maybe we
> were very nearsighted then.

It does seem irrational to spend billions to control and reduce
occupational and some public doses far below what could be considered as
low as reasonably achievable taking into account social and economic
factors when millions of people receive medical and natural background
doses far inexcess of the "controlled and reduced" doses.  I suspect
some of the problem stems from the fact that the regulations that impose
ALARA do not include the words having to do with social and economic
factors needing to be taken into account.  The lawyers probably couldn't
figure out how to inspect against such a requirement.  But without those
words, ALARA gets to be only a dose reduction program without much
consideration of the other two facets (economics and social).  I wonder
what would happen if the NRC inspected each ALARA program to see how it
takes into account the economic and social considerations.  Would one of
our NRC radsafe friends like to comment on that suggestion?

I remember back in the 60s that the AEC proposed something like a 12
page record be filled out for every occupationally exposed person.  The
record asked for medical exposures, chemical exposures, etc. not just at
work, but at home or anywhere.  Would one of our radsafe friends at the
NRC be willing to look that proposed record up and send me a copy?  It
was vigorously opposed by just about everyone.  But, maybe we were all
shortsighted as Andy suggests.  Al Tschaeche antatnsu@pacbell.net