Slashdot Mirror
FedEx Misplaces Radioactive Rods
Hugh Pickens writes "A shipment of radioactive rods used in medical equipment has vanished while being sent by FedEx from North Dakota to Tennessee. Based on tracking information, FedEx is focusing its search in the Tennessee area, but as a normal precaution the company alerted all of its stations 'in the event that it got waylaid and went to another station by accident.' Dr. Marc Siegel says if someone opens the container it could pose some serious health risks. 'I don't believe it has the degree of radiation that, if it were opened, your skin would suddenly slough off. But the concern would be, if this got opened inadvertently and someone didn't know what it was and then was repeatedly exposed to it over several days, it could cause a problem with radiation poisoning,' says Siegel. 'The people that use this equipment in a hospital use protective shielding with it.' The lesson is that active medical material must always be transported in a way that ensures the general public cannot get access to it. 'Medical devices should not be FedExed. They should be sent under a special service,' adds Siegel."
TFA clearly states that the rods were located and its radioactive container was not opened.
"The rods were incased in a metal container called a "pig" that contains their radiation. Munoz said when they were recovered at the Knoxville station Friday no one had opened that casing."
"Everything's fine, the pig itself was not opened, and we're making arrangements to deliver it to the recipient," Munoz said.
FedEx (and other carriers) handle materials like this all the time. Also, if you had bothered to do a little more research you would have found this article:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-26/fedex-seeks-missing-shipment-of-radioactive-rods-used-in-ct-scan.html
quoute:
"The recovered cylinder, which was about 10 inches long and weighed 20 pounds, contained four rods of germanium-68, used in medical-imaging cameras. Their total radioactivity is 684 megaBecquerels, the equivalent of about 18 microcuries, said David McIntyre, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The rods are among the least significant sources of radioactivity from health and security perspectives, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
If someone had opened the canister, “it would take like 1,000 hours of exposure to get a skin blister,” Munoz said."
Ummm... a few points:
1) FedEx is, as far as I know, the only major carrier that handles radioactive material. It doesn't go in their regular package delivery system; they have a separate division that handles it (and biohazards, poisons, explosives, and things like that). See: http://www.fedex.com/us/services/customcritical/specialty/hazardous/index.html
2) No delivery service is going to be 100% mistake free. Negative outcomes will happen in life. Get over it.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
I had a nuclear scan scheduled for a week after the 9/11 attack. I suddenly started getting one or two calls a day from the medical center... it's off, it might be a week out, it might be two weeks out, we don't know... hey, come in your scheduled time, we just got a trickle of material, and we can do 8 or 9 tests.
the issue is, of course, the planes weren't flying. the special courier services weren't allowed to operate. the FedEx and UPS planes weren't allowed to operate. it's too far to drive the material. they finally found two containers of material at a distributor ten miles away that was to go out of activity tolerance in a day and a half.
a shipping container for, let's say for the sake of not spilling the beans, under a dozen doses, has three layers of radioactive protection. there are two layers of spillproof/shatterproof for both the short-lived nucleotide and the source that creates it from another short-lived nucleotide.
so, just as drunken truck drivers can move classified "special weaponry" across the country routinely, as we read earlier this week, certain amounts of radiostuff packed to standard X can be shipped per courier flight. not enough to wipe out a city, a little more than you are allowed without a higher-tier inspection system.
but do be advised it's not good stuff to keep around as a curiousity.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I cannot believe someone thought it was a good idea to FedEx radioactive material. Someone needs to be fired.
Why would it be wrong to hire a shipping company - in this case, FedEx - which has extensive experience in handling moderately hazardous materials and is properly licensed to do so?
FedEx Ground will handle Class 7 Radioactive Material I materials (bearing the 'radioactive white I' placards and labels) only; that's the lowest class.
Material meets the White I threshold if the measured radioactivity at the surface of the shipping package does not exceed 0.5 millirem per hour; most White I packages actually fall far below that level. The legal maximum exposure for civilians in the U.S. is 500 millirem per year, and 'radiation workers' are permitted ten times that. Even if we assume that the package is right at the edge of what's permissible, you would have to strap the box directly to your ass for more than a month to get close to the civilian limit.
Could one get a higher dose if you opened the package and removed the radioactive material from its inner container(s)? Sure -- but that takes a special kind of stupid. All of the packaging is going to be emblazoned with the 'radiation' trefoil symbol; you've got to assume that even if the package were routed to the wrong destination, the receiver is going to hand it right back to the FedEx guy. (Unless, of course, it's a recipient who regularly handles radioactives, in which case, still no worries.)
This isn't a case where someone decided to cut corners and put radioactive material in an unmarked box to save a few bucks on shipping. It was properly packaged, properly labelled material, accompanied by all the appropriate paperwork and handed over to an approved, accredited, regulated shipper. Yes, someone at FedEx screwed up, but it looks like their procedures for handling lost packages seem to have worked as they should. This is a non-story which is being blown out of proportion by people who don't understand and can't appropriately weigh the risks of handling radioactive materials. ~~~~
~Idarubicin