Last week, the Byron nuclear power plant released steam containing tritium to the environment after a transformer fire cut a reactor off from grid power. NRC spokeswoman Viktoria Mytling was quick to assure the public that the tritium concentrations in the escaping steam must be exceedingly low, as on site radiation monitors were not detecting any. However, as revealed by Nuclear Energy Information Service of Chicago, the State of Illinois Department of Nuclear Safety admits that it has no radiation monitors on site at Byron that can detect tritium levels in real time. Samples must be collected, sent out to a lab, and returned -- a process that can take an extended period of time. NRC's continual downplaying of tritium's health hazards are alarming, given its clinically proven hazards as a cause of cancer, birth defects, and genetic damage, and its ability to go wherever hydrogen goes in the environment and human biology -- including right down to the DNA molecule level, which it can lodge and deliver a very harmful blow.