In reactor-lifetime calculations it is customary to take account of the transient behavior of two fission-product poisons, Xe135 and Sm149, and to assume the gross poisoning due to all other products is a function of the total time-integrated exposure irrespective of the detailed flux history. This description tacitly assumes that the gross poisoning of the other products is stable. The adequacy of the description is demonstrated experimentally for a natural UO2 sample irradiated in a reactor flux of 2 × 1014 n/cm2-sec to an exposure of 6300 Mwd/ton. The poisoning associated with the so-called “stable” fission products is found to change only (−7 ± 3) barns/fission per year.