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Smoking & Radiation
| There is lots of radiation in your cigarettes! Passive smokers inhale radioactive particles! |
| "Warning: Cigarettes are a Major Source of Radiation Exposure." |
So, it seems I am not the only one trying to warn people about the
huge amount of radiation in smoking cigarettes!
Robert N. Proctor is a professor of the history of science at Stanford University and he
wrote an interesting article that was published in The New York Times and Herald
Tribune:
“I suspect that even some of our more enlightened smokers will be surprised to learn that
cigarette smoke is radioactive, and that these odd fears spilling from a poisoned KGB man
may be molehills compared to our really big cancer
mountains.” (Full article below)
Cigarettes contain radioactive Polonium 210, the same stuff that was used to poison
former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko. The one thing that really confuses me is that
any product with even the smallest trace of radiation is, by law, forced to put the
radiation warning sign on the product, and yet the tobacco companies are exempt from
this law: All over the world!
I must say, I was most upset that Al Gore did not touch on the matter of the radiation
in cigarettes in his “The Inconvenient Truth”, to such a degree that I even wrote him an
e-mail. ‘Surprisingly’ he did not respond to the inconvenient truth of radiation and
smoking…But Hey, Al Gore did bring an important matter to the doorstep of every
house, Global Warming, so let's salute him for that!
I’ve spent a considerable amount of time looking into this matter and found some other
background info on Polonium that may be interesting to know:
“How much polonium constitutes a fatal dose? The maximum safe body burden of
polonium is only 7 picograms. Polonium occurs naturally in the environment due to
radioactive decay of radon, and we all have traces of polonium in us. Polonium-210 is
regarded as one of the most dangerous substances known because it ejects alpha–
particles, which are helium nuclei, and these wreak havoc with every organ of the body
in which the polonium resides. (Inside a living cell they can trigger cancer if they
damage DNA.)
"In theory, a mere microgram of Polonium-210, which is no larger than a spec of dust,
would deliver a fatal dose of radiation. Polonium is only slowly excreted – it has a
biological half life of around a month – and this ensures its alpha-particles continue to
wreak havoc. “
- RCS Advancing the chemical sciences -
Some people know that smoking is bad for you; more educated people know that it
causes cancer and kills, but do they know why? For example, why should pregnant
women not smoke? Answer: Because the unborn fetuses are totally unprotected
against radiation. See, most people think it has to do with the tar, but in actual fact the
tar only accounts for 10% of smoking related deaths, the radiation accounts for 90%!
The same question can be asked about second hand smoke, why is it bad for you or
why does it give you cancer? Because the radiation sits on the smoke particles and if
you are inhaling second hand smoke you receive just as much Polonium poisoning.
That means if your hair or clothes smell of cigarette smoke they probably “glow green”,
and that would not be the good kind of green!
“Cigarette smoking is the single most preventable cause of premature death in the United
States. Each year, more than 400,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking. In fact, one in
every five deaths in the United States is smoking related. Every year, smoking kills more
than 276,000 men and 142,000 women.”
- CDC -
Just to put the above even more into perspective, more than 1, 095 people in America
alone, die every day from smoking related deaths. Thus every three days more people
die from smoking then the total casualty from the attach on the Twin Towers.
I hope to find the time to put all the information I have gathered together into a
refreshed look at the radiation in cigarettes, in the mean time you may want to read the
article by Robert N. Proctor and also pass it to your friends, smokers and non smokers:
- by Ms. Anje Handley, last updated 1 April 2008 -
“TANFORD, California: When the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko was found
to have been poisoned by radioactive polonium 210 last week, there was one group that
must have been particularly horrified: the tobacco industry.
The industry has been aware at least since the 1960s that cigarettes contain significant
levels of polonium. Exactly how it gets into tobacco is not entirely understood, but
uranium "daughter products" naturally present in soils seem to be selectively absorbed
by the tobacco plant, where they decay into radioactive polonium. High-phosphate
fertilizers may worsen the problem, since uranium tends to associate with phosphates.
In 1975, scientists at the tobacco company Philip Morris wondered whether the secret to
tobacco growers' longevity in the Caucasus might be that farmers there avoided
phosphate fertilizers.
How much polonium is in tobacco? In 1968, the American Tobacco Company began a
secret research effort to find out. Using precision analytic techniques, the researchers
found that smokers inhale an average of about 0.04 picocuries of polonium 210 per
cigarette. The company also found, no doubt to its dismay, that the filters being
considered to help trap the isotope were not terribly effective. (Disclosure: I've served
as a witness in litigation against the tobacco industry.)
A fraction of a trillionth of a curie (a unit of radiation named for polonium's
discoverers, Marie and Pierre Curie) may not sound like much, but remember that
we're talking about a powerful radionuclide disgorging alpha particles - the most
dangerous kind when it comes to lung cancer - at a much higher rate even than the
plutonium used in the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Polonium 210 has a half life of
about 138 days, making it thousands of times more radioactive than the nuclear fuels
used in early atomic bombs.
We should also recall that people smoke a lot of cigarettes - about 5.7 trillion worldwide
every year. If 0.04 picocuries of polonium are inhaled with every cigarette, about a
quarter of a curie of one of the world's most radioactive poisons is inhaled along with
the tar, nicotine and cyanide of all the world's cigarettes smoked each year. Pack-and-a-
half smokers are dosed to the tune of about 300 chest X-rays.
Is it therefore really correct to say, as Britain's Health Protection Agency did this week,
that the risk of having been exposed to this substance remains low? That statement
might be true for whatever particular supplies were used to poison Litvinenko, but
consider also this: London's smokers (and those Londoners exposed to second-hand
smoke), taken as a group, probably inhale more polonium 210 on any given day than
the former spy ingested with his sushi.
No one knows how many people may be dying from the polonium part of tobacco.
There are hundreds of toxic chemicals in cigarette smoke, and it's hard to sort out how
much one contributes compared to another - and interactive effects can be diabolical.
In a sense, it doesn't really matter. Taking one toxin out usually means increasing
another - one reason "lights" don't appear to be much safer. What few experts will
dispute is the magnitude of the hazard: The World Health Organization estimates that
10 million people will be dying annually from cigarettes by the year 2020 - a third of
these in China. Cigarettes, which claimed about 100 million lives in the 20th century,
could claim close to a billion in the present century.
The tobacco industry, of course, doesn't like to have attention drawn to some of the
more exotic poisons in tobacco smoke. Arsenic, cyanide and nicotine, bad enough. But
radiation? As more people learn more about the secrets hidden in the golden leaf, it
may become harder for the industry to align itself with candy and coffee - and harder to
maintain, as we often hear in litigation, that the dangers of tobacco have long been
"common knowledge."
I suspect that even some of our more enlightened smokers will be surprised to learn
that cigarette smoke is radioactive, and that these odd fears spilling from a poisoned
KGB man may be molehills compared to our really big cancer mountains.”
- By Robert N. Proctor -
huge amount of radiation in smoking cigarettes!
Robert N. Proctor is a professor of the history of science at Stanford University and he
wrote an interesting article that was published in The New York Times and Herald
Tribune:
“I suspect that even some of our more enlightened smokers will be surprised to learn that
cigarette smoke is radioactive, and that these odd fears spilling from a poisoned KGB man
may be molehills compared to our really big cancer
mountains.” (Full article below)
Cigarettes contain radioactive Polonium 210, the same stuff that was used to poison
former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko. The one thing that really confuses me is that
any product with even the smallest trace of radiation is, by law, forced to put the
radiation warning sign on the product, and yet the tobacco companies are exempt from
this law: All over the world!
I must say, I was most upset that Al Gore did not touch on the matter of the radiation
in cigarettes in his “The Inconvenient Truth”, to such a degree that I even wrote him an
e-mail. ‘Surprisingly’ he did not respond to the inconvenient truth of radiation and
smoking…But Hey, Al Gore did bring an important matter to the doorstep of every
house, Global Warming, so let's salute him for that!
I’ve spent a considerable amount of time looking into this matter and found some other
background info on Polonium that may be interesting to know:
“How much polonium constitutes a fatal dose? The maximum safe body burden of
polonium is only 7 picograms. Polonium occurs naturally in the environment due to
radioactive decay of radon, and we all have traces of polonium in us. Polonium-210 is
regarded as one of the most dangerous substances known because it ejects alpha–
particles, which are helium nuclei, and these wreak havoc with every organ of the body
in which the polonium resides. (Inside a living cell they can trigger cancer if they
damage DNA.)
"In theory, a mere microgram of Polonium-210, which is no larger than a spec of dust,
would deliver a fatal dose of radiation. Polonium is only slowly excreted – it has a
biological half life of around a month – and this ensures its alpha-particles continue to
wreak havoc. “
- RCS Advancing the chemical sciences -
Some people know that smoking is bad for you; more educated people know that it
causes cancer and kills, but do they know why? For example, why should pregnant
women not smoke? Answer: Because the unborn fetuses are totally unprotected
against radiation. See, most people think it has to do with the tar, but in actual fact the
tar only accounts for 10% of smoking related deaths, the radiation accounts for 90%!
The same question can be asked about second hand smoke, why is it bad for you or
why does it give you cancer? Because the radiation sits on the smoke particles and if
you are inhaling second hand smoke you receive just as much Polonium poisoning.
That means if your hair or clothes smell of cigarette smoke they probably “glow green”,
and that would not be the good kind of green!
“Cigarette smoking is the single most preventable cause of premature death in the United
States. Each year, more than 400,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking. In fact, one in
every five deaths in the United States is smoking related. Every year, smoking kills more
than 276,000 men and 142,000 women.”
- CDC -
Just to put the above even more into perspective, more than 1, 095 people in America
alone, die every day from smoking related deaths. Thus every three days more people
die from smoking then the total casualty from the attach on the Twin Towers.
I hope to find the time to put all the information I have gathered together into a
refreshed look at the radiation in cigarettes, in the mean time you may want to read the
article by Robert N. Proctor and also pass it to your friends, smokers and non smokers:
- by Ms. Anje Handley, last updated 1 April 2008 -
“TANFORD, California: When the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko was found
to have been poisoned by radioactive polonium 210 last week, there was one group that
must have been particularly horrified: the tobacco industry.
The industry has been aware at least since the 1960s that cigarettes contain significant
levels of polonium. Exactly how it gets into tobacco is not entirely understood, but
uranium "daughter products" naturally present in soils seem to be selectively absorbed
by the tobacco plant, where they decay into radioactive polonium. High-phosphate
fertilizers may worsen the problem, since uranium tends to associate with phosphates.
In 1975, scientists at the tobacco company Philip Morris wondered whether the secret to
tobacco growers' longevity in the Caucasus might be that farmers there avoided
phosphate fertilizers.
How much polonium is in tobacco? In 1968, the American Tobacco Company began a
secret research effort to find out. Using precision analytic techniques, the researchers
found that smokers inhale an average of about 0.04 picocuries of polonium 210 per
cigarette. The company also found, no doubt to its dismay, that the filters being
considered to help trap the isotope were not terribly effective. (Disclosure: I've served
as a witness in litigation against the tobacco industry.)
A fraction of a trillionth of a curie (a unit of radiation named for polonium's
discoverers, Marie and Pierre Curie) may not sound like much, but remember that
we're talking about a powerful radionuclide disgorging alpha particles - the most
dangerous kind when it comes to lung cancer - at a much higher rate even than the
plutonium used in the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Polonium 210 has a half life of
about 138 days, making it thousands of times more radioactive than the nuclear fuels
used in early atomic bombs.
We should also recall that people smoke a lot of cigarettes - about 5.7 trillion worldwide
every year. If 0.04 picocuries of polonium are inhaled with every cigarette, about a
quarter of a curie of one of the world's most radioactive poisons is inhaled along with
the tar, nicotine and cyanide of all the world's cigarettes smoked each year. Pack-and-a-
half smokers are dosed to the tune of about 300 chest X-rays.
Is it therefore really correct to say, as Britain's Health Protection Agency did this week,
that the risk of having been exposed to this substance remains low? That statement
might be true for whatever particular supplies were used to poison Litvinenko, but
consider also this: London's smokers (and those Londoners exposed to second-hand
smoke), taken as a group, probably inhale more polonium 210 on any given day than
the former spy ingested with his sushi.
No one knows how many people may be dying from the polonium part of tobacco.
There are hundreds of toxic chemicals in cigarette smoke, and it's hard to sort out how
much one contributes compared to another - and interactive effects can be diabolical.
In a sense, it doesn't really matter. Taking one toxin out usually means increasing
another - one reason "lights" don't appear to be much safer. What few experts will
dispute is the magnitude of the hazard: The World Health Organization estimates that
10 million people will be dying annually from cigarettes by the year 2020 - a third of
these in China. Cigarettes, which claimed about 100 million lives in the 20th century,
could claim close to a billion in the present century.
The tobacco industry, of course, doesn't like to have attention drawn to some of the
more exotic poisons in tobacco smoke. Arsenic, cyanide and nicotine, bad enough. But
radiation? As more people learn more about the secrets hidden in the golden leaf, it
may become harder for the industry to align itself with candy and coffee - and harder to
maintain, as we often hear in litigation, that the dangers of tobacco have long been
"common knowledge."
I suspect that even some of our more enlightened smokers will be surprised to learn
that cigarette smoke is radioactive, and that these odd fears spilling from a poisoned
KGB man may be molehills compared to our really big cancer mountains.”
- By Robert N. Proctor -
 | |  | |  | |  | |  |
| "... Thus every three from smoking then the total casualty from the attach on the Twin Towers..." |