Radioactive material found in clinic chief's chair
Police in Florida probing incident as possible theft and assault
(CNN) -- Police in Florida are investigating the discovery of three packets of radioactive material in the chair cushion of a Naples medical clinic administrator.
Police and state health officials said the administrator sat on the chair for three or four hours, but was exposed to only low levels of radiation and should not suffer any health consequences.
Nevertheless, police are investigating the incident as a possible theft and assault by a disgruntled employee.
"That's what it looks like. We have to prove it now; that's going to be the tough part," said Capt. Bruce Davidson of Naples Police and Emergency Services.
No arrests have been made, he said. Naples is on the southwest coast near Fort Myers.
The Naples Diagnostic Imaging Center notified police last Friday that three packets of Germanium 68 were missing from a General Electric PET CT Hybrid Imaging device.
Florida health officials said the radioactive materials are kept in a small, shielded container in the machine and are used to calibrate the PET scanner, a kind of high-tech X-ray device.
Areas in medical facilities that use radioactive packets are required to be restricted and must be secured when people are not there, said Bill Passetti, health physicist for the Florida Department of Health.
Police said there was no sign of a break-in.
Officials said the estimated exposure to the supervisor was 60 millirem (mR), based on a four-hour exposure.
The yearly allowable exposure is 100 mR -- or 5,000 mR for people who work in the medical radiation field, Passetti said.
"It's well below any accepted limits," Passetti said. Because the small size of the source, and the fact it decays over time, "there's really not the potential to receive a dose that would be considered a health hazard," he said.
But David Albright of the Institute for Science and Intelligence Security said the amount is "not a trivial amount" and could have increased the victim's chances of getting cancer had it not been discovered.
"It's not guaranteed cancer, but this should be seen as the equivalent of a physical attack that jeopardized his safety," he said.
 It's not guaranteed cancer, but this should be seen as the equivalent of a physical attack that jeopardized his safety. 
-- David Albright, Institute for Science and Intelligence Security
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"Even if it was only a 10 percent increase, he should not have to suffer that. It is a malicious act that should be interpreted as somebody trying to do you bodily harm."
The apparent target of the incident, Michael Conrath, the administrator of the chain clinic, said he does not know who moved the material, nor would he guess about the motive.
"I'm trying to let the police do the figuring. My position is, I don't know and I'm not going to venture a guess at this point," Conrath said.
As for health consequences, he said, "I'm going to undergo some medical testing so I can determine that myself. I don't know if it can be determined with any certainty."
Asked if he is concerned, he said, "Not terribly. It's evidently not a tremendous amount of radiation. The state physicist is very reassuring."
