Radiation Protection Today Winter 2021 | Page 5

The Pochin Inquiry ( Issue 1 , p16 ) Dear Editor – Another outcome of the scandal was the overdue installation of a state-of-the-art Whole Body Monitor ( WBM ) system at Aldermaston . A purpose-built facility was opened in 1980 by Sir Edward Pochin , containing two shielded measurement cells with a single control room , showers , laboratories and other ancillaries . The 15cm thick steel shielding was made from the armour plate of the demolished Royal Navy cruiser HMS Lion . The steel had been made before 1945 , so was not contaminated by fallout from atomic bombs . The first cell was kitted out with conventional ' phoswich ' scintillator detectors giving a low resolution capability similar to existing WBM systems at Harwell and Winfrith . The second cell had hyper-pure germanium high resolution ( HR ) gamma spectrometers which were the only ones to be used for in vivo measurements in the UK at the time they were commissioned . These were some ten times the cost of scintillators .

A small , enthusiastic team was assembled under Dick Lane , which I was privileged to manage on Dick ' s retirement . The early HR

' Radiation Protection ' or ' Radiological Protection '? The debate continues . Following our Launch issue article we received these comments :

Having been brought up , as it were , under Bo Lindell ' s eyes , and having then served for many years at the ICRP office , I am of course a strong supporter of ' radiological '. One of your interviewees mentions that IAEA defines ' radiation protection ' as ' protection against radiation '. I once made myself unpopular at an IAEA meeting by pointing out that their definition is outright wrong ; grammatically the phrase ' radiation protection ' implies protection of radiation . Jack Valentin

As a former Director of the National Radiological Protection Board and Chairman of ICRP ( Radiological , again ), I have never approved of ' Radiation Protection '. Radiation Protection , using the noun radiation as an adjective means , in English , ' protection of detectors required cooling with liquid nitrogen and were prone to technical problems . However , the results were excellent and soon enabled a far clearer picture to be obtained in various cases of uncertainty - whether of size or location - of internal actinide contamination in Atomic Weapons Research Establishment ( AWRE ) workers . Papers were written and presented . Further justification for the use of HR equipment came in 1986 , when the intake of radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident rendered low resolution in vivo systems unable to make measurements . The AWRE HR system – at that time , still unique in the UK – was , however , able to continue .

Eventually it was realised that no unexpected cases materialised from the routine monitoring programme at AWRE . All were either well-known and well-studied historic cases or presented in the light of Passive Air Sampler or other workplace measurements . Detector developments in recent years mean there is now no need for shielded rooms to make accurate in vivo measurements . The AWRE WBM , nevertheless , had its heyday . Walter McCormick MSRP

radiation ' - something I have never done . It follows that radiation detection is perfectly acceptable , as it refers to the detection of radiation . I accept that language should be dynamic and that English should evolve , but it can lead to ambiguity , and that we should strive to avoid . Roger Clarke CBE

I fear that the term ' radiation protection ' crept into our vocabulary as a result of the Americans ' use of the term . The first reference I can find is in the publication Building Research Advisory Board , Research Conference Report No . 3 , Laboratory Design for Handling Radioactive Materials . There was also the National Committee on Radiation Protection and Measurements , now the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements . Sheila Liddle

For a wider , general audience , Radiation Protection every time . Brian Gornall

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