Uranium Hair Analysis

[BLHamrick@aol.com]

In a message dated 10/09/2000 9:28:02 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
Holloway3@aol.com writes:

<< The fact that the level of uranium in 
 hair was several hundred times normal does not necessarily mean anything.  
If 
 the normal level is virtually zero, then a level several hundred times that 
 could be very little.  >>

I would tend to agree that the hair analysis is meaningless.  Several years 
ago I spoke to a lab in Illinois performing this analysis.  Initially, I was 
told there were "thousands" of samples analyzed, but when I spoke to the 
actual technician, it turned out there had been about 220 analyzed.  The lab 
technician did not know what the standard deviation was for the sample set, 
and, in fact, was not clear on the concept of standard deviation at all.  
There was virtually no information correlated to the results except 
geographic location - no water samples in those areas, no information on diet 
or shampoo type.  The results were, in my opinion, meaningless.

Barbara L. Hamrick
BLHamrick@aol.com 
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