The following information was provided by the State of
California via email:
On 02/23/17, the RSO [Radiation Safety Officer] contacted RHB [California Radiologic Health Branch] to report a lost I-125 seed with an activity of 0.388 mCi. Licensee stated that three lead pigs each with an I-125 seed (0.303 mCi and 0.388 mCi from February 22nd and a 0.388 mCi I-125 seed from February 8th) believed to be accidentally thrown in Mission Bay Hospital general waste. When this was discovered, licensee contacted Recology, requested an urgent pickup of their waste compactor container at Recology site on 02/23/17. Digging through the waste, licensee was able to locate two of the three lead pigs (both from February 22nd). The pig containing 0.388 mCi I-125 from February 8th was not recovered and believed to be buried in the landfill. UCSF [University of California, San Francisco] was getting seeds from Oncura, [which] was recently bought out by Theragenics. UCSF medical physicists were accustomed to receiving just the patient seeds. Theragenics, the new vendor, had included an additional calibration seed in a separate led pig in the same package and physicist were not looking for this additional seed.
RHB will be following up on the corrective actions.
CA 5010 Number: 022317
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