Emergency arrangements United Kingdom

Policy and strategy were in the making. The Allied leaders decided at the January Casablanca Conference to revive the build-up in the United Kingdom and took a number of actions during 1943 to flesh out that decision. In November 1942 the Combined Chiefs of Staff had briefly turned their attention to gas warfare and now an Allied as well as a United States policy was emerging. This policy required (i) a co-operative American and British effort aimed at arranging the defensive preparedness of all United Nations troops and (2) the accumulation of sufficient toxic munitions to make immediate retaliation possible should the enemy initiate gas warfare anywhere in the world. ... 

In the United Kingdom many of the offshore regulatory requirements are handled through the Prevention of Fire and Explosion, and Emergency Response (PFEER) Regulations. They require that duty holders provide adequate arrangements for escape, evacuation, rescue, and recovery of persons involved in an incident. 

An opportunity in this area finally emerged in 1961. Ethicon Inc., of Rahway, New Jersey - a U.S. subsidiary of Johnson Johnson - invited CPD to bid on the design and supply of a cobalt-60 irradiator that would sterilize sutures, needles, and other disposable medical items. There was keen competition for the job between CPD and a British firm, H.S. Marsh Ltd., which had an arrangement with the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Agency whereby the latter provided it with technical support and sales staff for irradiators. CPD offered to build the facility at a very low price in order to gain entry to the field. Since the Ethicon irradiator would require a cobalt-60 source of 750,000 curies, this was an obvious sales tactic for a cobalt-60 producer like CPD. Ethicon was happy with the promised performance of the machine but, since this was CPD s first such installation, was not convinced that it could do the... 

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