Replies

Two examples of alpha emitters are polonium (Po) and plutonium (Pu). (Polonium is concentrated in tobacco plants and subsequently inhaled by smokers directly into their lungs). Plutonium, like all alpha emitters, is not a radiation hazard unless you eat it or breath it in the form of an airborne dust. Then certain sizes of the alpha particles can come into direct contact with cells within your body. Although primarily man-made, Pu has been found in nature at the site of a natural fission reactor in Gabon, West Africa known as the Oklo phenomenon. The claim is often made that Pu is the most toxic substance known to man. This is not true. The following table indicates the relative chemical toxicities of several substances.

Substance -- lethal dose (mg) -- Death in

Ingested:
botulism toxin -- 0.00005 -- hours to days
nicotine -- 60–100 -- seconds to days
aflatoxin (in mushrooms)0.01 -- hours to days
aconitine (in flowers) 1–2 -- hours
strychnine -- 100–200 -- hours
cyanide -- 200 -- minutes
plutonium -- 6000 -- more than 15 years

In blood:
snake poison -- 0.005–1 -- hours to days
plutonium -- 2 -- more than 15 years

Inhaled:
nerve gas -- 1 -- hours
cadmium vapors -- 90 -- hours
plutonium -- 5 -- more than 15 years

BOMB WORKERS-NO HEALTH EFFECTS
Manhattan Project workers at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory during World War II (1944–45) inhaled 25 times the current permissible lung burden in an accident involving plutonium. The workers had retained maximum plutonium concentrations ranging up to 188,000 pCi in their bodies. These individuals have been studied closely for 42 years and of the 26 workers involved, seven had died as of 1991. The mortality rate is below that expected. Many of the workers were heavy smokers and the three lung cancer deaths have been attributed to this. In other words, an increased risk of lung cancer from inhaling plutonium has not been shown for even this highly exposed group. The only other death from cancer was a bone cancer (Voelz, et. al. 1991). It was the first bone cancer ever reported for an individual exposed to Pu. The type of bone cancer observed is historically associated with radium exposure. No significant conclusions were made by the authors for this cancer. Other research has shown that up to 40,000 pCi of Pu–239 in the body will not produce adverse health effects

WEAPONS TEST Pu RELEASES-NO HEALTH EFFECTS
Three to five tons of plutonium (about 320,000 curies) were released into the atmosphere by weapons testing from the end of WWII until the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed in 1963. No deaths have been detected from this, even though anti–nuclear organizations state that one gram (1/28 of an ounce) of plutonium is enough to give everyone on Earth cancer. After the 1963 treaty between the U.S. and the USSR all nuclear weapons testing by these two nations was done underground. Between 1963 and 1980 the U.S. exploded 316 nuclear devices underground. The radioactivity from these is already equivalent to the nuclear waste from many nuclear reactors.

In other words, Pu is the least of our worries. The destructive and polluting agenda of the Greens and their fellow travelers is killing our industry, enriching lawyers, and teaching American citizens that 'I'm only lawsuit away from riches' using specious science that no one understands anyway due to the dumbed down government school products.