Radioactive gems circulating in Asia?

["Pickett, Bruce D" <Bruce.Pickett@PSS.Boeing.com>]

The following news story was on the radio and in the paper this morning.
I got the text from:
http://www.seattletimes.com/extra/browse/html97/gems_111197.html

Bruce Pickett
The Boeing Company
Seattle, WA
bruce.d.pickett@boeing.com
-----------------------------------------------
Copyright (c) 1997 The Seattle Times Company 

Tuesday, Nov. 11, 1997 

Radioactive gems circulating in Asia? 

by James Mclean 
Reuters 

BANGKOK - Hundreds of dangerously radioactive gemstones are
circulating in Asian markets, and some have found their way into
finished jewelry, Bangkok gemologists believe. 

Tests conducted by radiologists in the Thai capital showed radiation
levels in some stones were more than 50 times the U.S. safety limit
and could cause health problems, including cancer. 

"It is most likely that the stone has been bombarded with neutrons in a
nuclear reactor," said Bangkok's Center for Gemstone Testing. 

The concerns center on batches of a popular semi-precious stone
called a "cat's eye" which are believed to have been irradiated to
change their color from yellow, when they are worth a few hundred
U.S. dollars per carat, to a chocolate hue priced at thousands of
dollars per carat. 

A 30-carat radioactive cat's eye set with diamonds in a finished ring
was discovered recently at a jewelry fair in Hong Kong, jewelry
executives said. 

"When it was placed in front of a Geiger counter (radiation detector)
we literally leaped back. The machine was just screeching every time
the ring went near it," said Jon McDonald, an editor at a local
jewelry-media firm. 

Tests recently conducted by laboratories in Bangkok on a 3.5-carat
stone showed radioactivity levels greater than 52 nanocuries per gram
(nCi/g). The U.S. safety limit is 1.0 nCi/g, and the legal limit in Asia
is
2.0 nCi/g, gemologists said. 

"This is dangerous; it could make your skin cancerous and destroy
white blood cells," said Bandhong Wangcharoenroong, director of the
radiation measurement division at Thailand's Office of Atomic Energy
for Peace. 

Several hundred carats of the stones were thought to be circulating in
Bangkok, but the problem was region-wide, said Ken Scarratt,
director of the Center for Gemstone Testing. "The biggest problem is
in places like Indonesia and Japan. In Indonesia a gem lab there has
seen hundreds of these stones coming through," he said. 

Tests suggested the stones would not be safe until the turn of the
century and should be kept in lead containers until that time, Scarratt
said. 

Dealers believe low-quality cat's eyes from Orissa in India were being
exported to Indonesia for irradiation and sold from there. 

But an Indonesian jewelry-industry official in Jakarta said he doubted
his country was the source of the radioactive gems. "Indonesia buys a
lot of gemstones from Burma, Thailand and India but to my
knowledge there are no labs here to treat gemstones," said the official,
who declined to be identified. 

"There are laboratories to test gemstone quality, but there are no labs
to treat gemstones," he told Reuters. 

He said irradiating gemstones was done elsewhere to increase their
value and one of his colleagues had discovered such stones in
Thailand a couple of years ago.