[ RadSafe ] RE: ruling out uranium vapor with x-rays.../Chromosome damage

[Bjorn Cedervall]

> Also, it is not known whether chromosome damage from uranium's> chemical genotoxicity is inheritable.
 
First, what chromosome damage may or may not do bears essentially no relation to uranium as a specific agent. If one wants to create chromosome breaks in a laboratory there are many chemicals that are much more efficient - alkylating agents is one such group of chemical substances.
 
Second, the laws of biology strongly selects against any type of severe damage on the genetic level and thus becomes an unimportant matter. Mild mutational or chromosomal events are much more likely to slip through the natural selection filter. Every sexually producing species has to cope with a large number of mutations (most of them caused by natural phenomena) in every generation. Most of these mutations are harmful in some sense but a smaller fraction are, depending on context, beneficial. Despite this - life goes on.
 
A few mutations from uranium exposure are likely to be quite uninteresting in the larger picture - first because they would be so few compared to all the mutations that are already out there (in the gene pool) for other reasons and second because there is nothing special with radiation from uranium that makes it special (besides that some anti-nuclear people seem to like that idea).
 
My personal ideas only,
 
Bjorn Cedervall    bcradsafers at hotmail.com
 
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