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	NRC NEWS U. S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION III 801 Warrenville Road, Lisle IL 60532
	CONTACT:	Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663/e-mail: rjs2@nrc.gov
		Angela Greenman (630) 829-9662/e-mail: opa3@nrc.gov

NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT: RIII-98-06

January 16, 1998

NRC SPECIAL INSPECTION TEAM TO PRESENT FINDINGS AT MALLINCKRODT MEDICAL, INC.

The meeting, which is open to public observation, will begin at 10:00 a.m. (CST). It will take place in the Maryland Heights Fire District House #1, 2600 Schuetz Road, Maryland Heights, Missouri.

The six-member inspection team was at the Mallinckrodt facility the week of January 12 and evaluated the company's radiation protection, transportation, and distribution programs.

Mallinckrodt is a major supplier of radioactive drugs used in research and routine medical diagnosis and therapy.

NRC staff scheduled the special inspection at the company as a result of an employee overexposure last year and several transportation incidents over the last two years.

In May of last year an employee received an exposure of 290 rems to his thumb. NRC's annual exposure limit to the hand of an occupational worker is 50 rems.

(For comparison, the average person in the United States receives about 300 millirems per year from natural background radiation.)

Two devices shipped from Mallinckrodt's manufacturing plant in Missouri in July of last year arrived at its nuclear pharmacies in New Jersey and Pennsylvania with radiation levels on the outer surfaces of the packages of 250 millirem per hour and 240 millirem per hour, respectively. The federal limit is 200 millirem per hour. These shipping violations were considered repetitive since a similar shipping violation occurred in December of 1996.

Mallinckrodt was fined $55,000 in December of last year for the personnel overexposure and the two July transportation incidents and $13,750 in May of last year for the December 1996 transportation incident.

The team will issue a written report in several weeks.