As handheld radiation detectors become more common in the name of “homeland security” at places like airports, border crossings, and large events like sports games, radiation therapy patients are setting off alarms in public places. Depending on the kind of therapy, a patient may be “hot” for up to three months. For example, six people were questioned at the Christmas tree-lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center last year after the medical radioisotopes in their bodies triggered false alarms, something “that happens all the time,” according to New York’s deputy comissioner for counterrrorism. From Reuters:
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission first recommended in 2003 that doctors warn patients they may set off alarms after being injected or implanted with radioisotopes. That came after police stopped a bus that set off a radiation detector in a New York City tunnel. They found one of the passengers had recently undergone thyroid treatment with radioiodine.
In August, the British Medical Journal described the case of a very embarrassed 46-year-old Briton who set off the sensors at Orlando airport in Florida six weeks after having radioiodine treatment for a thyroid condition.
He was detained, strip-searched and sniffed by police dogs before eventually being released, the journal said in its “Lesson of the Week” section…
There were nearly 20 million nuclear medical procedures performed in the United States in 2005, up 15 percent from four years earlier, so the number of people who could potentially be mistaken for terrorists is enormous.
“We hope that people who have radiation detectors are aware of the problem … and that they treat people with respect,” (said Henry Royal, past president of the Society of Nuclear Medicine).