Ionizing radiation from medical imaging. Average man-made exposure is much higher in developed countries, mostly due to CT scans and nuclear medicine. Natural background radiation comes from five primary sources: cosmic radiation, solar radiation, external terrestrial sources, radiation in the human body, and radon. The background rate for natural radiation varies considerably with location, being as low as 1.5 mSv/a (1.5 mSv per year) in some areas and over 100 mSv/a in others. The highest level of purely natural radiation recorded on the Earth's surface is 90 µGy/h (0.8 Gy/a) on a Brazilian black beach composed of monazite. The highest background radiation
Samut Prakan radiation accident symbol. Although the symbol was displayed on the teletherapy head, none of those handling the device were aware of its meaning, nor were there written warnings in Thai. Together with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the IAEA developed a new symbol that would serve as an intuitive warning for large sources of ionizing radiation. The new symbol was published in 2007 as ISO 21482, and is intended to accompany the trefoil on internal components of devices containing dangerous sources to prevent persons from unknowingly disassembling them. In Thailand, however, substantial efforts to prevent further such occurrences had not materialized