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    Exposure due to Radionuclides in Food Other than During a Nuclear or Radiological Emergency: Part 1: Technical Material
    Exposure due to Radionuclides in Food Other than During a Nuclear or Radiological Emergency: Part 1: Technical Material
    Exposure due to Radionuclides in Food Other than During a Nuclear or Radiological Emergency: Part 1: Technical Material
    Ebook359 pages3 hoursSafety Reports Series

    Exposure due to Radionuclides in Food Other than During a Nuclear or Radiological Emergency: Part 1: Technical Material

    By IAEA

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    Radionuclides of both natural and human made origin exist throughout the environment. These radionuclides can be transferred to plants and animals that are consumed by humans, thereby resulting in exposure to ionizing radiation and an internal radiation dose. This Safety Report provides information on the observed distributions of concentrations of natural radionuclides in various food products, on the use of ‘total diet’ and other studies to assess ingestion doses, and on radionuclide concentrations in natural mineral waters. Different dose assessment methodologies are presented and the advantages and disadvantages of each is discussed, along with approaches used for managing non-radioactive contaminants in food. This publication is jointly sponsored by the IAEA, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization. It is intended to support Member States in the assessment and management of radionuclides in food, and the alignment of national policies with Requirement 51 of IAEA Safety Standards Series No. GSR Part 3, related to radionuclides in food and drinking water.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherInternational Atomic Energy Agency
    Release dateAug 9, 2023
    ISBN9789201113238
    Exposure due to Radionuclides in Food Other than During a Nuclear or Radiological Emergency: Part 1: Technical Material

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      Exposure due to Radionuclides in Food Other than During a Nuclear or Radiological Emergency - IAEA

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      Exposure due to

      Radionuclides in Food

      Other Than During a

      Nuclear or Radiological

      Emergency

      Part 1: Technical Material

      SAFETY REPORTS SERIES No. 114

      Exposure due to

      Radionuclides in Food

      Other Than During a

      Nuclear or Radiological

      Emergency

      Part 1: Technical Material

      JOINTLY SPONSORED BY

      THE FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION

      OF THE UNITED NATIONS,

      INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY

      AND WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION

      INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY

      VIENNA, 2023

      COPYRIGHT NOTICE

      All IAEA scientific and technical publications are protected by the terms of the Universal Copyright Convention as adopted in 1952 (Berne) and as revised in 1972 (Paris). The copyright has since been extended by the World Intellectual Property Organization (Geneva) to include electronic and virtual intellectual property. Permission to use whole or parts of texts contained in IAEA publications in printed or electronic form must be obtained and is usually subject to royalty agreements. Proposals for non-commercial reproductions and translations are welcomed and considered on a case-by-case basis. Enquiries should be addressed to the IAEA Publishing Section at:

      Marketing and Sales Unit, Publishing Section

      International Atomic Energy Agency

      Vienna International Centre

      PO Box 100

      1400 Vienna, Austria

      fax: +43 1 26007 22529

      tel.: +43 1 2600 22417

      email: [email protected]

      www.iaea.org/publications

      © IAEA, 2023

      Printed by the IAEA in Austria

      August 2023

      STI/PUB/1986

      IAEA Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

      Names: International Atomic Energy Agency.

      Title: Exposure due to radionuclides in food other than during a nuclear or radiological emergency part 1: technical material / International Atomic Energy Agency.

      Description: Vienna : International Atomic Energy Agency, 2023. | Series: IAEA safety reports series, ISSN 1020–6450 ; no. 114 | Includes bibliographical references.

      Identifiers: IAEAL 22-01582 | ISBN 978–92–0–111123–4 (paperback : alk. paper) | ISBN 978–92–0–111223–1 (pdf) | ISBN 978–92–0–111323–8 (epub)

      Subjects: LCSH: Radioisotopes. | Radioisotopes — Food. | Radioactive substances. | Radioactive contamination of food.

      Classification: UDC 614.876 | STI/PUB/1986

      FOREWORD

      Radionuclides of both natural and human-made origin are present at various concentrations in food, resulting in exposure to ionizing radiation and an internal radiation dose. IAEA Safety Standards Series GSR Part 3 establishes basic requirements for the protection of people and the environment against harmful effects of ionizing radiation. Requirement 51 of GSR Part 3 states that "The regulatory body or other relevant authority shall establish reference levels for exposure due to radionuclides in commodities." Paragraph 5.22 of GSR Part 3 further states that

      The regulatory body or other relevant authority shall establish specific reference levels for exposure due to radionuclides in commodities such as construction materials, food and feed, and in drinking water, each of which shall typically be expressed as, or be based on, an annual effective dose to the representative person that generally does not exceed a value of about 1 mSv.

      These requirements are in section 5 of GSR Part 3, which addresses existing exposure situations.

      Currently, the associated recommendations in the IAEA Safety Standards to advise Member States on how these requirements ought to be implemented are very limited. Guidance has previously been developed and published by other international organizations with wider responsibilities for the quality of food and drinking water. Specifically, criteria for the assessment and management of radionuclides in drinking water in existing exposure situations have been published by the World Health Organization (WHO) and are referred to in the international food standards of the Joint FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex). For food, the Codex standards also include guideline levels for several radionuclides that are important for food in international trade. These guideline levels apply to radionuclides contained in foods destined for human consumption and traded internationally that have been contaminated following a nuclear or radiological emergency (i.e. both accidents and malevolent actions). However, there is a lack of information and practical guidance for assessing and therefore controlling exposures in existing exposure situations due to radionuclides in food. This Safety Report includes information pertaining to many different radionuclides, both human-made and of natural origin. However, the emphasis of the technical material contained in this publication is on a number of radionuclides of natural origin because, in general, it is these radionuclides that contribute significantly to ingestion dose in practice.

      The purpose of this Safety Report is to provide Member States with technical information that can be used as a basis to assess and, if necessary, manage exposure to radionuclides in food in existing exposure situations. This includes information on the observed distributions of concentrations of natural radionuclides in various food products, the use of dietary surveys to assess ingestion doses and radionuclide concentrations in natural mineral waters and wild foods. This technical information could be useful in providing the scientific and technical foundation for a future guidance (published as IAEA-TECDOC-2011) on implementing relevant GSR Part 3 requirements, as they relate to radionuclides in food and drinking water.

      This Safety Report is jointly sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and WHO. The IAEA wishes to acknowledge the contributions made by K. Kelleher (Ireland) in drafting and reviewing this report. The IAEA gratefully acknowledges the contribution of experts from the FAO, WHO and the project’s international steering group of experts from IAEA Member States. The IAEA officers responsible for this publication were C. Blackburn of the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, T. Colgan, J. Brown and P.P. Haridasan of the Division of Radiation, Transport and Waste Safety.

      EDITORIAL NOTE

      Although great care has been taken to maintain the accuracy of information contained in this publication, neither the IAEA nor its Member States assume any responsibility for consequences which may arise from its use.

      This publication does not address questions of responsibility, legal or otherwise, for acts or omissions on the part of any person.

      Guidance provided here, describing good practices, represents expert opinion but does not constitute recommendations made on the basis of a consensus of Member States.

      The use of particular designations of countries or territories does not imply any judgement by the publisher, the IAEA, as to the legal status of such countries or territories, of their authorities and institutions or of the delimitation of their boundaries.

      The mention of names of specific companies or products (whether or not indicated as registered) does not imply any intention to infringe proprietary rights, nor should it be construed as an endorsement or recommendation on the part of the IAEA.

      The IAEA has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third party Internet web sites referred to in this book and does not guarantee that any content on such web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

      The authoritative versions of the publications are the hard copies issued and available as PDFs on www.iaea.org/publications.To create the versions for e-readers, certain changes have been made, including the movement of some figures and tables.

      CONTENTS

      1. INTRODUCTION

      1.1. Background

      1.2. Objective

      1.3. Scope

      1.4. Structure

      2. RADIONUCLIDES IN FOOD

      2.1. Sources of radionuclides in food

      2.2. National and international reviews

      2.3. Summary

      3. ESTIMATION OF DIETARY INTAKES

      3.1. Introduction

      3.2. Food consumption data

      3.3. Dietary sampling methods

      4. ANALYSIS OF DIETARY EXPOSURE STUDIES AND PATHWAYS

      4.1. Introduction

      4.2. Dietary dose studies

      4.3. Natural radionuclides in natural mineral water

      4.4. Aquaculture

      4.5. Wild foods

      5. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF MEASUREMENT DATA for NATURAL radionuclides in food

      5.1. Introduction

      5.2. Data collection

      5.3. Statistical analysis

      6. SUMMARY

      6.1. Introduction

      6.2. Potassium-40

      6.3. Uranium and thorium series radionuclides in food

      6.4. Other radionuclides in food

      6.5. Activity concentrations in individual foods

      6.6. Dietary studies

      6.7. Knowledge gaps

      Appendix: LITERATURE REVIEW AND DATA COMPILATION

      REFERENCES

      Annex I: ANALYTICAL TECHNIQUES TO IDENTIFY AND QUANTIFY RADIONUCLIDES IN FOOD

      Annex II: STATISTICAL ANALYSES OF NATURAL RADIONUCLIDES IN FOOD

      Annex III: EXPLORING THE DISTRIBUTION OF ²¹⁰ Po IN MOLLUSCS

      LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

      CONTRIBUTORS TO DRAFTING AND REVIEW

      1. INTRODUCTION

      1.1. Background

      1.1.1. Radionuclides in food

      Radionuclides of both natural and human-made origin are present in various concentrations throughout the environment. The various sources of radionuclides in food are discussed in Section 2. In both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, these radionuclides can be transferred to plants and animals that are consumed by humans, thereby resulting in an exposure to ionizing radiation and an internal radiation dose. The activity concentration of a given radionuclide in a specific food can be highly variable, depending on many factors, including its chemical form and speciation. The ability of radionuclides to transfer into food is not the focus of this publication; suffice it to say that radionuclides can be detected in foods, though generally at low concentrations. Their mobility and transfer into food may depend on the characteristics of the ecosystem in which the radionuclide is present as well as physical, chemical and biological processes. For example, the degree to which the radionuclide is affixed to soil particles (in terrestrial ecosystems) or sediments (in aquatic ecosystems) determines how it will move through the environment and be assimilated by living organisms, such as plants and animals [1].

      Food is essential for life, providing our bodies with carbohydrates, fats, fibre, minerals, protein, vitamins and water. Good nutrition is vital for good health and disease prevention. Food is central not only to our health but also our psychology and culture. As such, food and food quality are highly emotive issues. The physical phenomenon of radioactivity can also generate strong feelings, which explains why the subject of radioactivity in food is equally emotive.

      Individual diets are highly variable, but, in general, the foods that we eat reflect our state of food security, and this can be defined according to four basic principles:

      (a) Availability — for example, the quantity and quality of food that can be produced or purchased;

      (b) Accessibility — the individual’s ability to acquire appropriate foods (i.e. given their legal, political, economic and social arrangements);

      (c) Utilization — the ability to make proper use of food in terms of storage, adequate sanitation, preparation and the provision of sufficient energy and nutrients;

      (d) Stability with time — is food available, is it accessible and can it be utilized at all times?

      Local soil and climatic conditions and access to natural resources such as forests and aquatic ecosystems have played an important role in determining the foods that are available to local populations. More recently, however, the globalization of the food production industry, the commercial development of aquaculture and a large reduction in transport costs have broadened the range of foods available in all regions of the world. Food availability has increased, and increasing numbers of people can access and utilize a broad range of different foods in addition to those produced locally.

      Since 1976, WHO has maintained the Global Environment Monitoring System (GEMS) — Food Contamination Monitoring and Assessment Programme, commonly known as GEMS/Food [2]. This database provides detailed consumption data for 17 ‘cluster diets’, each of which is a combination of average national diets. Detailed dietary information has also been published by many national and regional agencies and is widely used to assess the nutritional quality of the diets and identify the presence of agrochemicals, additives and contaminants in order to evaluate potential health risks.

      Information on dietary consumption is also an essential tool in assessing the radiation dose received from radionuclides in the diet; this is discussed in Section 3. Given the large variability in individual food preferences and differences in regional consumption patterns, monitoring programmes may need to include a component of the measurements of radionuclides in both individual foods and in samples of ‘total diet’. When sampling the total diet, the issues that arise primarily relate to the representativeness of samples and the identification of subgroups of the population receiving higher than average radiation doses. Sampling of individual food products can be helpful in identifying those foods or, perhaps more correctly, those food–radionuclide combinations that contribute disproportionately to individual dose. Measured concentrations of radionuclides in individual food products can also assist in supporting national and international trade.

      1.1.2. IAEA Safety Standards

      Until relatively recently, the IAEA Safety Standards addressed criteria for controlling public exposure to radiation from radionuclides in food only in the context of nuclear or radiological emergencies.¹ This changed in 2014 with the inclusion of safety requirements for existing exposure situations in IAEA Safety Standard Series No. GSR Part 3, Radiation Protection and Safety of Radiation Sources: International Basic Safety Standards [3], including for radionuclides in food.

      Requirement 51 of General Safety Requirements (GSR) Part 3 [3] states that "The regulatory body or other relevant authority shall establish reference levels for exposure due to radionuclides in commodities." Paragraph 5.22 of GSR Part 3 [3] further states:

      "The regulatory body or other relevant authority shall establish specific reference levels for exposure due to radionuclides in commodities such as construction materials, food and feed, and in drinking water, each of which shall typically be expressed as, or be based on, an annual effective dose to the representative person that generally does not exceed a value of about 1 mSv."

      These requirements are in section 5 of GSR Part 3 [3], which addresses existing exposure situations.

      Paragraph 5.1 of GSR Part 3 [3] defines the scope of the requirements addressing existing exposure situations. In the case of commodities such as food and drinking water, the requirements apply to the following:

      (a) Exposure due to radionuclides deriving from past activities that were never subject to regulatory control or that were subject to regulatory control but not in accordance with the requirements of GSR Part 3 [ 3 ];

      (b) Exposure due to radionuclides deriving from a nuclear or radiological emergency, after the emergency has been declared to be ended;

      (c) Exposure due to radionuclides of natural origin, regardless of activity concentration.

      In summary, in accordance with GSR Part 3 [3], radiation exposure from the consumption of food and drinking water in non-emergency situations is required to be managed as an existing exposure situation through the establishment and use of reference levels and needs to consider both natural and human-made radionuclides.

      1.1.3. Exposure situations

      In the IAEA Safety Standards, radiation exposure is categorized according to three broad circumstances that individuals may experience, namely planned exposure situations, emergency exposure situations² and existing exposure situations. These are defined in the IAEA Safety Glossary [5] and have the following meanings:

      (a) A planned exposure situation arises from the planned operation of a radiation source or from a planned activity that results in an exposure due to a source.

      (b) An emergency exposure situation arises as a result of an accident, a malicious act or other unexpected event and requires prompt action in order to avoid or to reduce adverse consequences.

      (c) An existing exposure situation is a situation of exposure that already exists when it is necessary to take a decision on the need for control.

      Planned exposure situations introduce new sources of radiation exposure; they are a matter of choice and are normally subject to some form of control or authorization by the regulatory body. On the other hand, emergency exposure situations and existing exposure situations are both situations that are not a matter of choice — when they occur, a decision needs to be taken on what actions, if any, are justified to reduce exposure. Emergency exposure situations develop into existing exposure situations, often referred to as the ‘recovery phase’, following a nuclear or radiological emergency.

      Radionuclides present in food and drinking water can arise as a result of any of the three exposure situations. For example:

      (a) A regulated activity such as an authorized discharge from a nuclear facility or a hospital is a planned exposure situation.

      (b) Emergency exposure situations may result in the accumulation of radionuclides in food and drinking water that may persist into the recovery phase.

      (c) Primordial radionuclides present in soil represent an existing exposure situation.

      For any given radionuclide, it might not always be possible to identify its origin precisely. For example, a food sample could contain ¹³⁷Cs from several different sources: nuclear weapons testing, authorized discharges from a nearby licensed facility and unplanned releases from a previous accident. However, the IAEA Safety Standards require that radiation doses from food and drinking water in the diet be managed as either an emergency exposure situation or an existing exposure situation.

      1.1.4. Existing international guidance

      As mentioned above, the safety requirements relevant to radionuclides in food and drinking water are established in section 5 of

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