Fun with medical radiations

[draggonlaady]

I may have mentioned this issue several years ago, but here it is again. There's a shocking disparity between regulations for animals and humans treated with radioactive substances.

From personal experience at the University Teaching Hospital, horses treated with Technetium for bone scans are kept in isolated stalls with special disposal of all bedding for 3 - 5 days. Cats treated with Iodine 131 for thyroid disorders are kept in isolation upwards of a week. When I went in for a hyda-scan and was treated with Technetium, not only was I not isolate AT ALL, I was not even given any information on potential radiation dangers (minimal, I know, but still, it's the principle of the thing) before undergoing the procedure, and I was not warned AT ALL about potential radiation exposure to people/pets/babies, nor was I asked if I expected to come into contact with pets or babies. Not a single bloody word of it. So the parts in that article about humans not always following directions? fuck 'em. Humans aren't always GIVEN directions.

Though for amusement value, my co-worker followed me around for a while with a Geiger counter to establish "minimum safe distance".

Now, in reality, what this probably means is that regulations for animals are stricter than actually necessary, but still.

Comments

[funranium.livejournal.com]

The normal administrative control excuse (humans can control their own activities) only works when you are informed of what you need to do. This was the answer to relax quarantine requirements. It, obviously, is not a good answer and only works as well as the radiologists administering treatment.

[draggonlaady.livejournal.com]

I was informed enough to know that the utter lack of information coming from them was bullshit. And ultimately, it's not like I have babies anyway, so in my case not a big risk, but they didn't know that. Informed consent did not happen.