Radon is the leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers and is estimated to cause the deaths of over 3,000 Canadians each year.
Radiation protection specialists are used to thinking of radiation in terms of dose. Radon, on the other hand, is normally referred to in terms of its concentration in air, or in terms of its contribution to overall annual dose as part of natural background radiation.
In this issue, Dave continues his interview series by talking with Karen Owen-Whitred, the new director general of the Directorate of Nuclear Substances Regulation (DNSR) at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC).
In his November 2019 President’s Message, Ed Waller said radiation safety professionals “are good at understanding the technical side of radiation exposure, statistics, and uncertainty, but . . . are often not good at translating these important technical concepts into readily digestible (yet accurate) explanations for the non-technical expert.”
Recently, at one of our local hospital sites, a sealed sharps container triggered the high alarm at one of our waste portal monitors. … This incident confirmed for us that we needed to invest in a more suitable instrument to efficiently and accurately identify radioisotopes.
I hope you are keeping well in these strange times. I’m really missing Tim Hortons, and it doesn’t look like we Yanks are going to be allowed into the Great White North (cue Doug McKenzie singing the SCTV theme song) anytime soon.
I hope you are doing well. The CRPA board is working hard to provide “virtual” opportunities in the coming months. We will be hosting an event almost every month.
Hello to all of our readers, and welcome to the end of 2020! It’s an understatement to say it’s been quite a year for everyone, for a multitude of reasons.
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