Deuterium Oxide 100% -Reply

[Charles Willis <CAW@nrc.gov>]

Mark,

Almost everything contains tritium.  The reasonable question is: how much?  To
get the answer for the material of concern, one must measure.

Heavy water does tend to contain more tritium than does most water.  Some years
ago we were interested in running some tests on people using tritium.  There were
objection because the people involved learned that we could get the same
information  using "non-radioactive" deturium.  We agreed to make the change but
after making the measurements, we had to let them know that there would be more
tritium injected with the deturium than would be used if were were doing the
tritium tests.  

Such is life.

Charlie Willis
caw@nrc.gov