[ RadSafe ] Tritium a carcinogen?

[John R Johnson]

Steven et al

I don't know about humans but tritium causes cancer in rats. See the paper

OCCURRENCE OF MAMMARY TUMORS IN RATS BY TRITIUM BETA-RAYS AND BY 200 Kvp
X-RAYS
N.J. Gragtmans, D.K. Myers, J. R. Johnson, A.R. Jones, and L.D. Johnson;
AECL-8425, Radiation Research 99 (1984) 636-650.

That study was done so we could apply the results to humans. The assumption
being that rats are like humans in that regard.

John
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-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl]On
Behalf Of Steven Dapra
Sent: April 15, 2006 7:39 AM
To: radsafe at radlab.nl
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Tritium a carcinogen?


Apr. 15

         In the recent group of news items posted by Sandy Perle there was
an article about low levels of tritium being detected in the drinking water
near a nuclear power plant.  The german portion of the article read,
"Tritium, a potential carcinogen, is a radioactive form of hydrogen
commonly found in groundwater but more concentrated in water used in
nuclear reactors."

         Are there any verified cases of tritium causing cancer?  If not,
are there any instances in which tritium is plausibly believed to have
caused cancer?

Steven Dapra
sjd at swcp.com


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