Barium Sulfate for Dummy X-Ray Techs (WiseGeek Week 1)

Human intestinal tract imaged
with barium contrast medium

It's been a while since we cast the Antisocial Network spotlight on a single site, but ever since we identified our first DotD from WiseGeek.com a couple of months ago, the staffers have been compiling a backlog of other candidates from the site. With forty or fifty possible candidates already in the files, we decided now was the time. Without further ado, then, we give you the first WiseGeek week winner, Felicia Dye, and her article "What is Barium Sulfate?" (now at the niche site AlltheScience.com, a misnomer if there ever was one.

Having a scientific bent, the researcher looked long and hard, but nowhere in Dye's text did we find the chemical formula for barium sulfate, BaSO_4. We had to assume that's because such a concept never occurred to her. Felicia's connection to the science of barium sulfate is obviously rather tenuous, however, given the errors in her introduction to the compound:

"Barium sulfate is a naturally occurring white solid that may appear slightly off white. It is extracted from the mineral barium. The substance usually has no taste or smell but has on occasion been reported to have a mild fruit odor. This chemical powder is metallic and does not dissolve in water."

First, barium is not a mineral, it's an element – barium sulfate is a mineral called barite, for what that's worth. Oh, and barium sulfate isn't metallic, barium is. You're not doing well here, Felicia!

Dye rattled off a number of factoids she harvested somewhere, perhaps the compound's entry at Wikipedia. Then again, she omitted barium sulfate's use in drilling mud – along with any mention at all of its density. Once she finished her mention of its use in pigments, she wandered over to the medical field where she "explained" its use in medical procedures thus:

"...barium sulfate... is given to patients who will have medical imaging procedures... Once the suspension is inside a person, it allows the radiologist to view areas of the gastrointestinal tract including the esophagus and stomach. This is possible because the areas exposed to the suspension tend to appear white. This allows a good image to be taken of those areas."

Wait, Felicia, it's "exposure to the [BaSO₄] suspension" that turns areas white? Are you certain? Because if you are certain, you're certainly wrong: did you not wonder what the words "radiocontrast" and "radiopaque" that kept turning up in discussions of barium sulfate means? No, apparently you didn't...

Barium compounds are used in imaging studies because barium nuclei absorb far more X-rays than organic tissue. The GI system turns white on X-rays because it's full of material that absorbs X-rays, not because the barium sulfate is a white powder. Dye couldn't figure that out, which is why she's the first Dumbass of the Day recipient in WiseGeek Week.

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