Current Pediatric Research

This work was directed towards finding out the natural radioactivity and effective dose due to ingestion of frozen chicken samples that are created regionally and foreign from outside Iraq taking in account different age groups. The samples were collected from markets in Al-Najaf city. This food analyzed in the laboratory using gamma spectrometer. The average of specific activity of 40K, 226Ra and 232Th of the samples under study were found to be 65.40±11.14 Bq/ kg, 4.53±0.89 Bq/kg and 0.87±0.19 Bq/kg respectively. These results were less than the worldwide vary for 40K, 226Ra and 232Th in food according to UNSEAR 2000 that it's four hundred Bq/kg, thirty Bq/kg and thirty two Bq/kg, respectively. While the average total value of annual effective dose for persons eating these samples in different age groups (infant, children and adult) were 112.25±16.98 μSv/y, 165.32±28.00 μSv/y and 93.65±15.25 respectively. The average of the annual effective dose found to be below the limit of (1.0 mSv/y) that is the value that suggested by the International Commission on radiological Protection. In general, it is complete that foodstuffs that were analyzed are safe for human consumption as a result of their natural radioactivity levels are under the utmost permissible level.

Author(s): Ali Abid Abojassim

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