Between October 2012 and May 2013, the two customers located in Ridgeland, SC and Tampa, FL shipped depleted shielded Tc-99m generators back to Mallinckrodt in
Missouri using courier service companies. The Ridgeland, SC customer, Palmetto Isotopes, shipped three containers; one on 4/29/13 and two on 5/1/13 using the courier
ACI. The Tampa, FL customer, West Coast Nuclear Pharmacy, shipped one container on 10/11/12 using the courier Medical Delivery Services. Mallinckrodt has no record of these shields being returned to their facility.
Each container has 3.09 mCi of depleted U-238 as a shield. Mallinckrodt uses between 4000 - 5000 total containers to support their customer's needs. A container is declared missing after performing a complete inventory, contacting their customers to verify the Bill of Laden (BOL) information and contacting the couriers who conduct a search and provide a written response to Mallinckrodt. The typical turn-around time for the above is approximately 100 days.
The serial numbers, i.e., DU tracking # on box and safe serial # stamped on shield, of the missing sources are as follows:
Palmetto - DU tracking # 2185528, safe s/n 608, DU tracking # 2186644, safe s/n 930, DU tracking # 2189415, safe s/n 4947
West Coast Nuclear Pharmacy - DU tracking # 2178372, safe s/n 2146
The licensee contacted R3 (Lambert).
This report is similar to EN #47106.
THIS MATERIAL EVENT CONTAINS A "LESS THAN CAT 3" LEVEL OF RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL
Sources that are "Less than
IAEA Category 3 sources," are either sources that are very unlikely to cause permanent injury to individuals or contain a very small amount of radioactive material that would not cause any permanent injury. Some of these sources, such as
moisture density gauges or thickness
gauges that are Category 4, the amount of unshielded radioactive material, if not safely managed or securely protected, could possibly - although it is unlikely - temporarily injure someone who handled it or were otherwise in contact with it, or who were close to it for a period of many weeks. For additional information go to
http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1227_web.pdf