Benefits and Risks of Radiation

Benefits and Risks of Radiation Sources

Radiation has generated a lot of fear and misinterpretation due to lack of information and invisible nature of radiation. There is nothing necessarily dangerous about it, visible light is radiation, heat is radiation. Its benefits and risks must be established using principles of radiation protection.

Furthermore, Radiation is a weak carcinogen; it is unnecessary exposure that increases health risks. Sunlight becomes dangerous if the exposure is not controlled. Even our intake of food and drinks become dangerous to health if not controlled.

All uses of radiation (ionizing and non-ionizing) are beneficial to human health, environment, industries, research.

So, why the fear.  Let us consider these incidents:

• The Radiological accident in Lilo Georgia 1997 was abandonment of sources and late recognition. In the process of recovery, a source was removed from pocket of a soldier’s winter jacket.

• Accident in Gilan 1996 affected a worker who was performing his duty of carrying heat insulation material. The young man noticed shiny, pencil sized metal object lying in a trench. He picked up the source and put it in the right breast pocket of his coveralls.  Although he returned the source to the trench when he started experiencing dizziness, nausea, etc, yet it was late.

• In Istanbul it was abandonment and human error by not exporting one of the packaged sources without the permission of the relevant body. People should look out for safety and danger signs. (Read more The radiological accident in Lilo/jointly by IAEA and WHO.-Vienna: The Agency,2000.The Radiological Accident in Gilan-Vienna, IAEA 2002. The radiological accident in Istanbul.- Vienna: IAEA, 2000)

The sources used in these companies and industries are for beneficial purposes. None was meant to be harmful or to overexpose the public. Accidents and overexposure occur due to human error, improper awareness, and lack of knowledge.

In application of ionizing radiation, these radiation protection principles and measures must be considered:

·         Justification of the application

·         Optimization – making it as low as reasonable achievable(ALARA)

·         Dose limitation – exposure must not exceed dose limits.

Radiation defined

All these are radiations and forms of radiation classified into ionizing and non-ionizing. Ionizing because it produces electrically charged particles called ions in the materials it strikes, non-ionizing because it does not carry enough energy to ionize atoms.

So, radiation is defined thus:

• Energy in the form of waves or particles that has enough force to remove electrons from atoms.

• It includes particles and rays given off by radioactive materials, stars, nuclear reactions, and high voltage equipments.

• Most of it occurs naturally and some are produced by human activities.