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NRC NEWS U. S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION III 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532

PREDECISIONAL ENFORCEMENT CONFERENCE SET FOR SEPT. 28 ON POSSIBLE VIOLATIONS AT MALLINCKRODT, INC.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet September 28 in Lisle, Illinois, with representatives of Mallinckrodt, Inc., for a predecisional enforcement conference to discuss possible safety violations associated with multiple radiation overexposures to workers' fingers at the company's facility in Maryland Heights, Missouri.

The meeting will be at 9 a.m. in the Third Floor Conference Room, NRC Region III Office, 801 Warrenville Road, in Lisle. The meeting is open to public observation. Members of the NRC staff will be available following the meeting for questions from the public.

Mallinckrodt produces radioactive drugs for research and for medical diagnosis and therapy.

The possible violations were identified in an NRC inspection in July and August as a followup to an earlier review by an NRC Augmented Inspection Team. The company had reported a possible radiation overexposure to a worker's fingers on April 13 and subsequently identified other work areas at its plant where workers might have received radiation exposures to their fingers above NRC limits.

The possible violations include radiation exposures to workers' fingertips in excess of the NRC limit of 50 rems per year and the failure of the company to thoroughly evaluate work procedures to keep radiation exposures within regulatory limits.

The Augmented Inspection Team report and the followup inspection report are available on the NRC's web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/OPA/reports/ait.htm

The decision to hold a predecisional enforcement conference does not mean that a determination has been made that violations have occurred or that enforcement action will be taken. The purpose is to discuss apparent violations, their causes and safety significance, to provide the licensee with an opportunity to point out errors that may have been made in NRC inspection reports, and to enable the company to outline its proposed corrective actions.

No decision on the apparent violations or any contemplated enforcement action, such as a civil penalty, will be made at the conference. Those decisions will be made by NRC officials at a later time.

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