Re: internal doses monitoring in Nuclear Medicine

[xat@inel.gov (Alden Tschaeche)]

Wes Van Pelt wrote:
 Tc-99m is almost non-toxic.  

This brings up a question.  Is the stable Ruthenium-99 that is the thing
to which Tc-99 decays also non-toxic?  It seems that we just think about
the radiotoxicity of the things that are injected, but not about the
elements to which they decay.  I suspect the answer is:  yes, Ru-99 is
non-toxic.  But I have never seen the question asked, let alone
answered.  Does anyone out there know about the biochemistry of
rhuthenium?  Al Tschaeche xat@inel.gov