Re: Fairy tales on Sr-90 in baby teeth

["Franz Schoenhofer" <franz.schoenhofer@chello.at>]

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Steven Dapra <sjd@swcp.com>
An: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Datum: Dienstag, 24. Oktober 2000 03:07


>Oct. 23
>
> I went to the STAR page's Tooth Fairy Project page and found this:
>
> "Most of the strontium in the baby teeth is transferred to the fetus by
>the mother during pregnancy."
>
> Is this true?  Can Sr-90 cross the placenta?  (If it is  transferred "by
>the mother" it would have to cross the placenta, wouldn't it?)
>


Steve,

Though I have worked extensively with Sr-90 determination in food and the
transfer of it, I would not dare to regard me as an expert on this topic.
But I claim that I can use common sense: The baby teeth used in the
determination of Sr-90 in serious studies and most probably also in the
Tooth Fairy Project (which is by no means a serious study!!!) are the first
teeth that babies or rather children loose. Hopefully the Tooth Fairy
Project does not extract the invisible "sprouts" of teeth of newborn
babies - or has anybody of you seen a newborn baby with fully developed
teeth which fell out of their mouth immediately after delivery???? I have
explained clearly in earlier comments that I regard the Tooth Fairy Project
as one of the scientifically worst, most biased and useless "studies", which
does not provide any facts and results, but only speculations which all are
clearly intended to "support" the unacceptable and unscientific theories of
people like Sternglass and others. So let us compare the mass of a "tooth"
of a newborn baby (which might in the worst case contain an activity
concentration  of Sr-90 dependent on the concentration in the mothers diet,
if Sr-90 could cross without hindrance the placenta. As soon as the baby is
born, the teeth will grow in mass dramatically until they will be replaced
by new ones. The source of Sr-90 will be the nutrition of the baby - may it
be mothers milk or formula. Industrial baby food will by no means be
produced from local ("nuclear polluted milk and food containing "elevated"
Sr-90 levels"), so Sr-90 in baby teeth will by no means reflect any
"emissions" of the nuclear power plant, but only reflect the well known
global fallout. The nutrition of the mother during pregnancy will as well by
no means reflect any local pollution patterns - if they existed at all. A
better approach would be to measure local food production for Sr-90 in order
to achieve an upper limit of possible contamination. But I am aware that
Sr-90 concentration in wheat, potatoes, milk, vegetables and fruits will not
even draw one percent of attention than "baby teeth" will do for the public.
In spite of all the silly and provocative comments of this "Norman Cohen" I
have until now not found any Sr-90 concentration values in baby teeth from
the Tooth Fairy Project - did I miss something? I do not know of any
scientific publication. But propaganda works well - even without any
results.

Let me conclude: Common sense tells me that even if Sr-90 can cross the
placenta (which I do not know!) the contribution of Sr-90 from the mother to
the activity concentration of Sr-90 to the teeth lost by a young child is
negligible due to the tremendous gain of mass of the teeth after birth which
will be influenced by other food sources than nutrition transferred through
the placenta. Even if transfered through the placenta the Sr-90
concentration could only reflect the environmental or rather global fallout
activity concentration.

I regard this "Tooth Fairy Project" as one of the most disgusting
"projects", because it is obviously intended to "proof" a predefined result,
it neglects well known radioecological principles, basic knowledge about
nutrition and distribution of food. I miss any background data. But once a
project started, involving a lot of money, more of emotions and increasing
numbers of supporters, motivated by fear and threat the project has to keep
rolling...... Supporters would be very disappointed if the "proof" would not
be delivered. But are there any intention to phase the "project" out?

Best regards,
Franz




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