Thursday, November 17, 2011

Radioactive Iodine source in Hungary

The radioactive iodine-131 should have come from an

institute in Hungary.

The cause of traces of radioactive iodine-131 measured in the air in several European countries, seems to be found, such as the IAEA in Vienna and the Ministry of Environment reported on Thursday. It should be, therefore, an institute for producing radioisotopes for medical purposes and research near Budapest. The director of the company doubted responsible for the knife to his values in Europe.

Radioactive iodine-131-particles have been released since January in the manufacture of medical devices, said the IAEA. The confessed head of the Hungarian company, Jozsef Környei, one against the Hungarian news agency MTI. His company in the town but could not alone Csilleberc the elevated levels in some European countries have caused. It was not possible because of the distances, said a director of the Institute, Mihaly Lakatos, compared with the Reuters news agency. This assessment differed from that of the IAEA.

Limit was not exceeded

The increased values were the head of the company to have fallen below the limit harmful. In the summer, yet the production was stopped and the filter system has been renewed. But even after the restart operation in September increased values were measured, so the production was stopped again.

In some air-collecting stations in the east and north of Austria a few days ago tiny amounts of radioactive iodine-131 were detected. Measurements performed in Vienna but have since late last week no longer detectable values, the explained environmental department responsible for radiation protection. "So there is still no threat to the Austrian population," it said.

A mathematical estimate of the dose for the Austrian population from the observed values showed a maximum of one nanosievert. That's one of 40.000stel dose abbekommt a man in a transatlantic flight due to cosmic rays. The natural background radiation, which every citizen is exposed in one hour is equivalent to about one hundred times the recently measured iodine-131 dose, the ministry said.

The iodine-131 has been blamed for cancer and can contaminate foods such as milk and vegetables. It has a short half-life of eight days.