Answers
02/18/1988

<TITLE>3M Static Eliminator Update </TITLE>
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Feb. 18, 1988 
                         3M STATIC ELIMINATOR UPDATE
    The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued orders to Minnesota Mining 
and Manufacturing Company (3M) suspending the distribution of all static
elimination devices which use radioactive polonium and are used in
manufacturing facilities where beverages, cosmetics, devices, and drugs are 
made.  The NRC order followed a report that some of the devices were leaking
small amounts of polonium-210.  (See Talk Paper T88-16, February 9, 1988.)
    The following can be used to answer inquiries concerning the effects the
leaking devices might have on these FDA-regulated products. 
    FDA is working closely with the NRC and state health officials to 
determine whether any FDA-regulated products have been contaminated.  At
this time, FDA has inspected 77 FDA-regulated firms and collected more than 
1,300 samples and found only one product containing a fragment (as small or 
smaller than a grain of sand) of a radioactive material of a dose well below
that which would cause any health risk or radiation injury.  FDA scientists 
have concluded that there is very little chance that any of the microspheres
have been ingested and postulate that if a fragment or microsphere were 
ingested, it would pass through the gastrointestinal tract in about two days
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and be excreted.  They further conclude that the degree of radiation
exposure would be insignificant or trivial at an estimated dose in adults of
2 mrem (millirem).  This dose is insignificant compared to the radiation
doses an individual would receive from natural background sources.  After 
the Chernobyl incident, for example, FDA was not concerned with food samples
unless they exceeded 500 mrem, a dose many hundreds of times stronger than
that found in a single food sample thus far.
    Thus, FDA has no evidence that there is a risk to public health or a
health hazard at this time. 
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