Re: Tritium Bioassay Laboratories

[Quang Le <quangle@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

Stan,
I agree with Bob's suggestions below. Try to set up a system to do
"screenings" yourself. H-3 levels of concern would show up readily in
"spot" urine samples. Use an external vendor sparingly, to QA your system
or for significant intakes. Their charges add up quickly! My experience
with external vendors was not a very good one, so I'll reserve my comments
for private communications. E-mail me directly if you'd like further info.



<<<We haven't talked for a long time (if you remember the name, I used to be
at UNC).  A suggestion would be to go ahead and get yourself set up to do
the H-3 bioassays.  If you already have access to a good LSC, the rest is
not very expensive or difficult.  At the most, a best ever H-3 calibration
standard will only cost in the range of $700.  Commercial labs will go way
beyond this quickly.

The main thing would be to consider a "screening" program.  You can then
readily have a program good enough to find H-3 uptakes that are still below
an action level without having to build a "certified" system.  You can then
use a commercial lab if you find a significant intake or some other type of
serious ("court case") situation.  This may occur rarely or never.  Good
usage technique can readily prevent any serious intakes on a routine basis.

The typical H-3 limit in NC (as is usual) is a single use of > 100 mCi.
Most AUs don't do this routinely, or for an extended period.

Bob 

At 02:29 PM 3/9/00 -0600, you wrote:
>UNCW is just reaching quantities of tritium where the activities 
>handled warrant a bioassay program.  Being new to this, I have two 
>questions.
>
>1.  Should I go with a third party to analyze our samples? It doesn't 
>seem to be a problem for most facilities but I prefer a third party to 
>perform our tritium bioassays rather than in-house personnel. The 
>concerns I do hear are cost and time.
>
>2.  Does anyone use any laboratories that have performed an 
>excellent job for them in a tritium Bioassay program?  
>
>Thanks in advance for your input.
>
>
>Stan H. Harts>>>
_____________________________________________________________________ 
Quang Le 
SLAC/OHP 
(650) 926-2610 
<quangle@slac.stanford.edu> 
Note: The above is my own opinion only!  
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