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== Confused report of a "heavy water" contamination incident ==
In 1990, a disgruntled employee at the [[Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station]] in [[Canada]] obtained a sample (estimated as about a "half cup") of heavy water from the primary heat transport loop of the nuclear reactor, and loaded it into the employee water cooler. Eight employees drank some of the contaminated water. The incident was discovered when employees began leaving [[bioassay]] urine samples with elevated [[tritium]] levels. The quantity of heavy water involved was far below levels which could induce heavy water toxicity per se, but several employees received elevated radiation doses from tritium and neutron-activated chemicals in the water.[http://www.ecology.at/nni/site.php?site=Point++Lepreau]. This was not an incident of heavy water poisoning, but rather radiation poisoning from other isotopes in the heavy water. Some news services were not careful to distinguish these points, and some of the public was left with the impression that heavy water is normally radioactive and more severely toxic than it is. Even if pure heavy water had been used in the water cooler indefinitely, it is not likely the incident would have been detected or caused harm, since no employees would be expected to get as much as 25% of their daily drinking water from such a source.{{
==Production==
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