Examples include consumer products, medical sources, fallout from atmospheric atomic bomb tests, and industrial byproducts. Some consumer products are sources of radiation. The radiation in some of these products, such as smoke detectors and airport X-ray baggage inspection systems, is essential to the performance of the device. In other products, such as televisions and tobacco products, the radiation occurs incidentally to the product function. Medical Sources Radiation is an important tool of diagnostic medicine and treatment and is the main source of exposure to the public from human-made radiation.
Exposure is deliberate and directly beneficial to the patients exposed.
In general, medical exposures from diagnostic or therapeutic X rays result from beams directed to specific areas of the body. Thus, all body organs generally are not irradiated uniformly. Nuclear medicine examinations and treatments involve the internal administration of radioactive compounds, or radiopharmaceuticals, by injection, inhalation, consumption, or insertion. Even then, radionuclides are not distributed uniformly throughout the body. Radiation and radioactive materials also are used in the preparation of medical instruments, including the sterilization of heat-sensitive products such as plastic heart valves.