Precious Speck

An almost invisible speck of radioactive carbon--a millicurie*-- became the first byproduct of atom-bomb-making to be released for medical research. Last week's buyer (at $367 plus handling charges and deposit on the bottle): the Barnard Skin and Cancer Hospital of St. Louis, which will use it only in research. It will not cure cancer.

Radioactive carbon is not new; "C-14" has been made in cyclotrons for seven years but in even more minute quantities and at far greater cost. Other elements can also be made radioactive, but C14 is the most useful for cancer research because 1) it remains radioactive for thousands of years, can be recovered and used again, 2) carbon is the key element in all body chemistry. Barnard's researchers will use it as a tracer (it signals its presence by shooting off radiation) to study the metabolism of cancerous cells which must be understood before the disease can be controlled, prevented or cured.

All experiments will be performed on rabbits. Reason: present object of experiments is not to cure but to cause cancer and hundreds of rabbits can share the C14 required to experiment on a single human being.

*The radioactive equivalent of one one-thousandth of a gram of radium.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.