New Device Could Warn Of Radiation Exposure

Paul Lovendale, president of Radeco Inc., displays one of the credit card-sized RADview dosimeters at the company in Taftville

It will be marketed to emergency responders and the general public.

Nine months ago, Taftville distributor Radeco Inc. convinced International Specialty Products of Wayne, N.J., to develop the product using testing criteria provided by health physicists at Dade Moeller & Associates Inc., of Richland, Wash.

Called the “RADview Colorimetric Dosimeter,” the badge features a spot of self-developing film the size of a dime, which is surrounded by a shaded chart of selected radiation levels. Developers say that when exposed to increasingly dangerous doses of radiation, the film darkens to match the corresponding, shaded Environmental Protection Agency-specified levels on the card.

A built-in “false positive” indicator would alert consumers to any inaccuracy, but it would have to be checked in a laboratory, say experts immersed in its development and testing.

Firefighters dealing with a dirty bomb, citizens trying to learn more about a nuclear accident at a nearby reactor, or emergency workers entering a building that may or may not contain sources of radiation could all use the badge to advantage, say experts familiar with it.

“You merely have to look at the detector and say to yourself, 'The total dose of radiation means it's OK to stay,' or, 'I should get moving,' ” said Morgan Cox, a senior health physicist with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

“There's some work to be done in terms of testing and acceptance, too,” said Cox, who saw a sample of the innovation at a January meeting of the Health Physics Society, “but it caught my attention right away because it is new and different and has wide application.”

In 18 months, a more sensitive card under development could be used to measure up to the limit of background radiation exposure allowed by the government, said David Lewis, a senior director at the company. And, Cox adds, that could go a long way toward reassuring people who live near reactors that, unless a serious problem develops, they are safe.

Unlike the personal, more expensive electronic dosimeters now used to measure radiation doses, the affordable badges would cost $20 each, said Radeco President Paul Lovendale. They don't need batteries or electricity, don't have to be calibrated, and would last up to a year, he said.

By summer, the RADview badge could be as ubiquitous as the long-distance phone card that dangles from racks at drugstore cash registers, Lovendale contends. People at trade shows and nuclear power plant operators are already placing orders, and Radeco is meeting Friday with New York City hazardous materials experts to discuss a possible order, he said.

“I'm not sure someone living in the middle of Iowa would need this, but if you live in a city, everybody's pretty much a 'first responder,' ” Lovendale said. Since the 2001 terrorist attacks, “What is an 'intended target?' ” he asked. “Masses of people.”

Locally, firefighting and hazardous materials experts are intrigued but skeptical of the badge's practicality.

“If a radiological device goes off, it's going to be on all the radio stations: 'Get out of town, Jack,' ” said Fire Police President Greg Van Overloop, who helps provide emergency services in Waterford, the town where Millstone Power Station is located. “I'm not waiting for a card to tell me to get out of town.”

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For years, the federal government and the nuclear industry have measured the level of radiation affecting humans in a standard unit called “roentgen equivalent man,” or “rem.”

The badge uses a scale set by the EPA of zero to 50 rems. The badge measures radiation in the air, and a shaded area labeled 5 rems represents exposure in a workplace with radiological sources. Ten rems reflects a risk of contamination to a public place and 25 rems requires lifesaving and public protection.

Fifty is an extreme and unlikely level used for comparison, Lovendale explained.

High doses of ionizing radiation from a nuclear source can cause nausea, vomiting, hemorrhaging and other symptoms, can in extreme cases lead to severe skin or tissue damage and can prove lethal, according to information provided on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Web site.

Arthur Desrosiers, an associate with Dade Moeller, helped define the testing criteria used to determine the accuracy and reliability of the film on the badges.

Testing now being double-checked independently at the University of Wisconsin had to address a number of variables, said Desrosiers. He said he wanted to know: Is it sensitive enough? Is it stable enough? Would it show spurious results that weren't radiological doses? Does it meet the typical battery of environmental tests: temperature, humidity, magnetic tests, vibrations.

“I was a little skeptical, being an engineer,” Desrosiers added. “If you tell me you can do something, that really doesn't mean much to me. I have to see it happen. I have to see the test results.”

It also made sense to cover the entire badge with an orange filter to screen out the ultraviolet rays from sunlight while still being able to read the data on the card, Desrosiers said.

Still, the badge could develop a false reading if left for days on a car dashboard, for instance, Lovendale pointed out. But the filter is intended to prevent such false indications as long as the badge is handled properly.

International Specialty Products holds patents on the self-developing film it helped pioneer 20 years ago at the urging of federal defense agencies, said Lewis. To date, the film has been used chiefly by hospitals and clinics that use radiological equipment, he said.

“We've been working with this technology for 20 years and trying to find a way in which it can be made useful,” said Lewis of International Specialty Products. “In that sense, it's a culmination of a pretty good chunk of my lifetime's effort and that of a lot of other people. Part of making money is actually seeing your technology put to a very good use.”

The badge is also being developed to meet standards set by Homeland Security, and as such could qualify for federal funding, said Cox, who helps develop department standards.

“DHS wants to see instruments used by the agencies they fund — emergency medical technicians, the U.S. Coast Guard, border protection,” he said. “They want those people to be using instrumentation that has been tested and meets the standards.”

Now that the badge is in the final testing stages, Desrosiers is also confident of its reliability and value.

“When we started this project, I thought the difficult thing to do would be to convince someone to carry this thing, based on the one-in-a-million chance they'd be irradiated,” he said. “In talking to firefighters, they're already convinced. The sense I have is, because the federal government is telling them this is a real threat, so they believe it.”

Closer to home, activist Nancy Burton of the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone said her group would welcome any innovation that makes radiation monitoring “user-friendly to the community.”

However, Roger Sylvestre, an emergency planner for the Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments, still needs to be convinced.

“I'm wondering if we're not playing on people's fears,” Sylvestre said. “Personal dosimeters are part of our training. When you calibrate equipment, there's a higher level of trust with that. Dosimeters have been around for 40 years and are a trusted product.”