AW: more Durakovic, uranium in body

[Franz Schönhofer <franz.schoenhofer@chello.at>]

Bill,



Thank you for confirming my comment from a US point of view. I totally

agree with your comment that (my words) finding the 0.01 pBq/body of

uranium (regardless of the isotope) will be hailed by people like this

"expert" as a clear evidence of......, claiming that more money has to

be dedicated to the "independent" institute and to the world renowed

scientist to investigate ..... etc. etc. Obviously they find enough

people to donate money - this might be due to that - as far as I know -

such money is tax-deductable in the USA.



But I have another personal question: Are you a relative of "Jack"

McDowell, one of the most outstanding persons in liquid scintillation

spectrometry, and one of the greatest radiochemists I ever met? I know

that a son of him was working in radiochemistry and I would almost bet

that his first name was "William". I met Jack for the first time at Oak

Ridge in 1988 together with my good friend John McKlveen and the last

time must have been the LSC conference in Glasgow, Scotland in 1994. If

you are his son - how is your mother?



Sorry for mixing RADSAFE with personal agenda, but your recent mail on

LSC-questions brought up my questions. 



Best regards,



Franz







Franz Schoenhofer

PhD, MR iR

Habicherg. 31/7

A-1160 Vienna

AUSTRIA

phone -43-0699-1168-1319



----------------------------------------------------

> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----

> Von: William L. McDowell [mailto:wmcdowellphd@amrad.com]

> Gesendet: Dienstag, 25. Jänner 2005 19:18

> An: 'Franz Schönhofer'; 'John Jacobus'; 'Franta, Jaroslav'; 'Radsafe

(E-

> mail)'

> Betreff: RE: more Durakovic, uranium in body

> 

> At my last position we performed a large number of Uranium bioassay

> tests every year.  The method of preference was wet ashing/digestion

> followed by analysis with a laser kinetic phosphorimetry unit.  It was

> certainly not uncommon to get a positive result for Uranium in urine.

> These were low, less than a fraction of a part per million, but they

> were statistically well above the detection limit for the instrument.

> If the program goes through, I suspect that we will hear stories of

> “positive results” with no mention of the actual values, statistical

> comparison to a background population, uncertainty in the measurement,

> impact of the relatively small study population, etc. etc. etc.

> 

> 

> Bill McDowell









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