A safety study of thallium-containing ceramic superconductor material in rats

Thallium is a highly toxic cumulative poison in humans and animals. The use of the metal as a component in ceramic superconductor material (CSM) raised concern about the health risk of CSM to children accidentally swallowing some of the CSM or to occupationally-exposed workers in the electronics industry. This study examined the biological availability of CSM by quantifying the thallium content in organs, blood and fecal matter of Sprague-Dawley rats after a single acute oral exposure to CSM and compares these values to similar thallium measurements from identical exposure to thallium sulfate. The CSM-exposed group had significantly less thallium than the thallium sulfate-exposed group in all tissues/fluids analyzed. This suggested that CSM poses a lower health risk to exposed persons than thallium sulfate.