RADIATION SAFETY

[CHARLES BLUE <BLUE.CHARLES@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV>]

I am posting an item from the radiobiology server that I believe could best
be addressed by the RADSAFE Forum.  Please reply to Seyed
Mohammad.  Thank you.

Charles Blue
EPA/HP
blue.charles@epamail.epa.gov
My opinions, however skewed, are my own, etc....

>>> Michael Rosemann <rosemann@gsf.de> 10/08/97 10:53am >>>
On Wednesday, October 8, 1997 at 12:30:00 pm MEZ,
"Seyed Mohammad Javad Mortazavi Mehrabadi" <MORTAZAV wrote:
>UNDEFINED '"Seyed Mohammad Javad Mortazavi Mehrabadi" 
><MORTAZAV@net1cs.modares.ac.ir>'
>
>UNDEFINED
>
>Dear colleagues:
>
>  I read a paper in Health Physics (Vol 72 No 1) entitled: "Healthful 
>Radiation".In this paper I found a sentence that was very questionable
>for me:
>" Any trained person working with radiation will agree that it is safer
>to work for eight to ten hours per day with radiation than to drive to
>and from work"
>I want to know your ideas.
>
>Best Regards
>S.M.J. Mortazavi
>Medical Physicist
>
>Medical Physics Dept.
>School of Medical Sciences
>Tarbiat Moddarres University
>E-mail mortazav@net1cs.modares.ac.ir
>P.O. Box 14155-4838
>Fax (98 21) 800 6544
>Tehran , IR Iran  
>
>


This might depend on the place:
In a modern city, say Paris or London, driving a car I would consider
much 
more dangerous than working in a lab with radioactivity.

On the other end of the scale, in a wild country with less stringent rules 
(but perhaps also with less traffic), the balance might be shifted
considerably towards hazards while working with radioactivity.

May experience is, that even different countries in Western Europe have
considerably different safety standards for radioactive work. For what
kind 
of work one has to wear a film dosimeter, how often one needs a
medical 
check, how to organise work with open sources, what to do with
radioactive 
waste of different contamination level and different nucleotides is
regulated 
quite differently.
Thus, I think that there is no definite answer to your question.
However, I always think that the potential health hazards during
radioactive 
work depends much more on my own decisions and how I handle
and organize everything, whereas driving a car through heavy traffic
can bring me into danger caused by other peoples action.


                      Michael Rosemann
                  GSF Institute for Pathology
                   Ingolstaedter Landstrasse 1
                   85764  NEUHERBERG / Germany
                    Tel.:  (0049)-89-31872628
                    FAX:   (0049)-89-31873360
                    e-mail: rosemann@gsf.de