1955 SEMINAR DISCUSSION 969 ple, take Dr. Nelson's work in which he used radioactive bromoacetic acid with a label done in the carboxyl group. If during the experiment some of the material is hydrolyzed and this effect is not examined closely, one could easily be misled by the measurement of gross radioactivity. As simple as this appears, it had been overlooked in some cases in the past. The thing that I should like to stress here is that measuring radioactivity as such is not sufficient on which to base a valid conclusion. One has to know what the activity is, what it represents and then determine it quan- titatively by the radioactivity determination. The same considerations apply to labile positions in other compounds. For example, in the steroid field •)ne could obtain a material such as this. Here we have a ketone and it is not much of a job to carry out an exchange reaction with radioactive hydrogen. In addition to the substitution here at the labile position, substitution in other parts of the chain and nucleus of this compound would be possible. In experimental work with these compounds it is important to realize that this radioactive hydrogen can come off of this molecule from this position alpha to the carbonyl group merely by equilibrating the compound with alkali. This procedure should be done before the material is used experimentally, and this process is known as "washing out." Another illustration of the importance of making certain of the radio- activity which one is measuring is in some biological work with thyroxine. The thyroxine can be labeled easily with radioactive iodine. However, under acidic pH and in the presence of oxygen the iodine in the thyroxine is exchanged very easily. In experiments with this compound one could be misled very easily, if only gross radioactivity were determined and if the activity were not assigned to a specific and particular molecular entity. These illustrations point out some of the pitfalls in the use of the tracer technique. Radioactive isotopes are still just a tool and will provide infor- mation only to the extent that they are used intelligently. One thing more which ! should like to point out is the question of con- tamination as highlighted by Mr. O'Toole and Dr. Nelson. Dr. Nelson pointed out that he carried out his syntheses at the millicurie level, while the actual experimental determinations were made at the microcurie level. This difference is of considerable importance. You have 1000 microcuries, for example, to one millicurie. In carrying out the experiments at con- tamination of the order of one part in one thousand of the original synthetic level of activity would be activity of the same order of magnitude as the actual experiment. Contamination of this sort could easily vitiate the experimental results. These two points then, the actual designation of the radioactivity with a molecular entity and contamination, are two of the really important as- pects of work in this field that I should like to stress.

270 JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS GORDON R. MOLESWORTH (Molesworth Associates, New York 16, N.Y.) My presence here today would be a little bit out of place, were it not that the products you fine gentlemen develop have to be sold. In the first place, I think your industry along with others has been very slow to adopt these remarkable techniques and materials in the research and development of new products. But what perhaps is more critical is the fact that in the cases where you have used radioactive isotopes to develop new and better cosmetic products you have not taken a.dvantage of the opportunity that such use gives you to help your company sell them in large volume. Why? Well, there are several reasons. In the first place, I think probably your company public relations people and those in your agencies frankly "don't know a neutron from a hole in the ground." And certainly there are many, many pitfalls in trying to show the public how you have used atomic energy in developing a product for sale if you do not know what an isotope is. Other industrial firms have learned this lesson the hard way. I think your public relations and advertising people are experts. They know the cosmetic business. That is why you hire them, but the use of this new tracer technique in helping to sell the housewife, the layman of any kind, presents some new problems for them. There is also a second reason given. The public is fearful of atomic energy and, therefore, one should not say that he used radioactive isotopes in the development of a product. I disagree with this heartily. Of course, there is a great deal of fear on the weapons side. It constitutes in many cases a mental block, but there are ways around this. The public wants to know everything it can about atomic energy, and I know it can be told in simple terms so that the layman can understand it. Thirdly, there is another great misconception which many of us who deal in the business of informing the public like to conjure up and that is that the general public is much more ignorant than we are and cannot under- stand this new field. If we try to show how a tooth paste or a cleansing cream was developed on a scientific basis with the use of radioactive iso- topes, a situation in which we can prove that the cleansing cream is better than anybody else's product, we seem to think that this is too deep, the public cannot absorb it. Anyone who maintains that is dead wrong. Let us take a case. Many of you have seen on television the use of the Accu-ray, a very nice name applied to what they called up to now "an electronic device" used in the production of a certain brand of cigarettes. This does not make any sense at all to me. Here is the first time in which a beta density gauge has been used very effectively and very practically in controlling the amount of tobacco that goes into each cigarette, thus solv- ing a ticklish problem the cigarette industry has had for a long time. Again