How Secure are Radiological Materials?

You would think that radioactive isotopes, even those used for commercial purposes, would be tightly monitored and controlled. You would also be wrong. Radiological materials were reported as missing not once, but twice at the beginning of 2016. In February, it became publicly known that a case containing 10 grams of Iridium-192 had gone missing in Iraq the previous November. This immediately caused speculation that ISIS had stolen it in order to build a weapon. Then in March another case of Iridium-192 was stolen in Mexico. For Mexico, this was the fourth time radiological material had been inadvertently stolen since 2013.  In all of these cases, the materials were eventually found, and none of the radiological material was missing from either one. However, the incidents still raised a great deal of concern over how radioactive materials are handled by private companies.

There are a number of industries that use radiological materials to provide a variety of different services.  For example, the materials that went missing in Iraq and Mexico were both used for industrial radiography – a common practice in which radioactive material is used to identify weak spots or cracks in metal objects, such as oil pipelines. Radiological materials also play a key role in medical treatments ranging from blood transfusions to cancer treatments. Additionally, radiological materials are used to sterilize food, enhance the color of some gemstones, and to create the sensors in smoke detectors, among many other applications.

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