Managing Radioactivity in Food, Drinking Water and Commodities
The IAEA and the Nuclear Regulatory
Authority of Argentina have held a regional workshop in Buenos Aires from 21 to
23 March 2017, to discuss the application of current international standards
for managing radioactivity in food, drinking water and commodities in
non-emergency situations.
The workshop, jointly
organized by the IAEA, the Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in
Food and Agriculture, the Pan American Health Organization and the World Health
Organization, was attended by 46 participants from 16 Member States and two non-Member
States, Aruba and St. Lucia.
Food, drinking water and
commodities may contain both naturally occurring and man-made radionuclides.
When consumed or used, these products may expose people to radiation. For this
reason, it is important to know the amounts of radionuclides in food and
drinking water and, if necessary, control their distribution and harmonize
national approaches in order to facilitate international trade.
The main purpose of the
workshop was to seek feedback from countries in the Latin America and the
Caribbean region on their experience in using the international standards,
including the identification of any aspects requiring further clarification or
development.
A number of countries in the
region currently do not have programmes for monitoring radioactivity in food
and drinking water. The workshop offered these countries an opportunity to
learn from the experiences of others on how to design and implement an
appropriate and cost-effective monitoring programme, including the management
of situations where activity concentrations in the standards are exceeded. The
first step in designing such a monitoring programme is to undertake baseline
studies describing the situation nationally.
Participants at the workshop
recognized the need to further harmonize the international standards in terms
of scope, radiation protection criteria and terminology. They considered that
the current system was unnecessarily complex, but that at the same time it did
not adequately address all the situations that exist in the region.
To find more about the article
please visit https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/managing-radioactivity-in-food-drinking-water-and-commodities
Source: IAEA