Re: Cost of Radiation Exposure

["J. J. Rozental" <josrozen@netmedia.net.il>]

At 05:50 PM 8/23/99 -0500, you wrote:

>        Can someone direct me to a source of information on the dollar cost 
>     (to society or a business)for an exposure of a man Rad.  General 
>     information like "my company uses X dollars per man Rad" would be nice 
>     to know, but an official document would move things along a lot 
>     better.


Considering International references I recommend:

a)  Cost-Benefit Analysis in the Optimization of Radiation Protection, ICRP
37, 1983

b) Assigning a Value to Transboundary Radiation Exposure, IAEA Safety Series
67, 1985

Considering Examples in several practices (Medical, Industry, Legislation,
Philosophy ...) I recommend the IRPA procedures, starting 1980 and the
Symposium on  Optimization of Radiation Protection", IAEA/NEA  Vienna 10/14
March 1986.

Look, in particular, for the texts of the  two most known names  of the
Optimization:   Bo Lindell (Swedish) and Daniel (Dan) Beninson (now Chairman
of the  Argentina Regulatory Authority)

One document of Dan in the IAEA/NEA Symposium was:

Dan Beninson, Abel J. Gonzalez, "Optimization in recolocation decisions,
Optimization of Radiation Protection", Proc. IAEA/NEA Symposium, Vienna
10/14 March 1986, Vienna, 1986

In particular for Bo Lindell I strongly recommend his last paper,  that you
can read in the Internet at the IRPA Site. Look at the  9th International
Congress of the April 14-19, 1996, Proceedings / Volume 1.
Look at Risk Evaluation Page 437.
I Recommend besides the Bo's paper also the  G.A.M. Webb's  paper:         
"How Risk Evaluation is Built into Optimization and Decision-Making: Is it
Clear and are the Results Appropriate?

Now a little of philosophy

About in the last two decades numerous attempts have been made to assign a
monetary  value for alpha, including comparisons with risk reduction
expenditures in other activities. Rarely, if ever, however, have the
expenditures in these  other areas been based solely on an  objective
assessment of the amount of risk reduction anticipated or achieved as a
result of the expenditures. Such conversions therefore have been of limited
use for establishing an alpha value. Many other methods  have been tried for
assigning a value to unit dose reduction, including loss of production and
increased health costs due to illness and premature death. All of the
approaches include subjective     elements and all include many
uncertainties and arbitrary assumptions. For these reasons in Brazil, for
instance, it was adopted US$10.000 per man.Sv, according with general
approach in the year 1988. 

J. J. Rozental
Israel                                                     

jjrozental

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