Comment from Tim Deere-Jones
AnonymousSupportIndividual
Summary: The commenter, who conducts consultancy research with UK Citizens Campaign Groups, advocates for the FDA to adopt "long counting" methodology for analyzing Caesium 134 and 137 in food. They argue that shorter counting times, like those used by UK regulators, significantly underestimate radioactivity levels and resulting radiation doses.
It's vitally important that the FDA analyse Caesium 134 and 137 in food stuffs using "long cont" methodology. In my home country (the UK) our nuclear regulators routinely subject samples to a 15 hour count despite scientific reports (published in peer reviewed journals) demonstrating that longer "counting times" provide more precise an accurate results. In my consultancy research with UK Citizens Campaign Groups I always require our analysts to use a 3 day count. As a result we find that the data obtained from the UK Nuclear Regulator 15 hour counts ALWAYS significantly under estimate the radioactivity in their samples.This means that when the Regulators attempt to calculate the doses delivered by their samples, those doses are always an under estimation. The FDA should take note of this and commit to ensure that they will ALWAYS use "long counting" gamma analysis for Caesium 134 and 137.