Re: Uranium hair analysis?

[stabin@esper.com (Mike Stabin)]

Barbara Hamrick said:

>I am looking at a laboratory report which purports to identify toxic elements
>in individuals by analyzing the individuals' hair.  One of the items
>identified is uranium.  

We at the Radiation Internal Dose Information Center have received about 3-5
phone calls over the last year or so, all from people in California, I
believe, who have received such tests and are concerned about where they
might have gotten the uranium uptake.  My boss (Dick Toohey) tells me that
this is probably due to trace amounts of uranium which are detectable in
certain shampoos, and which are probably detectable by the methods used by
whatever company is getting people to send in their hair samples.  One of
the people who contacted us was a rad worker, but most of the others were
just members of the general public who somehow got our number.   Toxic
materials can be excreted (if that is the correct term) through
incorporation in the hair, but in this case, these results are probably
anomalous.

Mike Stabin