In today's New York Times, an op-ed appeared which may cast a new light on anti-smoking laws. In his article "Puffing on Polonium" science historian Robert N. Proctor raises alarms about the significant presence of Polonium 210 in tobacco products. This is the same Polonium 210 reportedly responsible for the poisoning death of former KGB agent and Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko.
Proctor, a Stanford professor, writes:
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 GÇ£daughter productsGÇ¥ 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. ***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 .04 picocuries of polonium 210 per cigarette. ***
A fraction of a trillionth of a curie . . . may not sound like much, but remember that weGÇÖre talking about a powerful radionuclide disgorging alpha particles GÇö the most dangerous kind when it comes to lung cancer GÇö 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.
Proctor compares smoking with chest x-rays:
Pack-and-a-half smokers are dosed to the tune of about 300 chest X-rays.
As Proctor notes, "[n]o one knows how many people may be dying from the polonium part of tobacco. There are hundreds of toxic chemicals in cigarette smoke, and itGÇÖs hard to sort out how much one contributes compared to another GÇö and interactive effects can be diabolical."
Proctor cites the World Health Organization for the statistic that 10 million people will be dying annually from cigarettes by the year 2020.
"Cigarettes, which claimed about 100 million lives in the 20th century, could claim close to a billion in the present century." ***
Here are some other radiation exposure comparisons, and a link for even more:
+++++ Source and dose
Cigarettes (30 per day) 16,000 mrem/year
Radon Gas 200 mrem/year (Lung Dose)
Natural radionuclides in the body 35 mrem/year (Whole Body Dose)
Terrestrial radiation 28 mrem/year (Whole Body Dose)
Cosmic radiation from outer space 27 mrem/year (Whole Body Dose)
+++++Diagnostic Medical Procedures
Thallium Heart Scan 500 mrem (Whole Body Scan)
Barium Enema (X-Ray portion) 406 mrem (Bone Marrow Dose)
Upper GI Tract (X-Ray portion) 244 mrem (Bone Marrow Dose)
Mammogram 138 mrem per image
Dental X-Rays (2 Bite Wings) 80 mrem (Skin Dose)
Dental X-Rays (Panoramic) 30 mrem (Skin Dose)
Chest X-Ray 8 mrem (Whole Body Dose)
I have no medical or scientific expertise, so I'm afraid I cannot answer any technical questions. But as the dangers of tobacco become increasingly known, one wonders if eventually tobacco products will be made illegal in the U.S. market.
Brits repored recently, that they found traces of polonium on London/Moscow airplanes, too... Drat those Polacks; they're as ubiquitous as germs... Even RK ain't free of them (vide me) :)
Maria Sklodowska-Curie died of cancer, as did her daughter Irene and her son-in-law Frederic Joliot (Irene's husband and co-researcher), but I think they all died of leukemia (blood cancer), not lung cancer, and they all have been exposed to polonium (and also to radium in case of Maria) a lot more than a smoker is.
There's no doubt that smoking is "bad for you" and that even the "passive smoking" can be deadly, esp. for people with respiratory problems. But I think polonium in cigarettes, by itself, isn't the worst of it.
But I feel healthier and younger now (that was 5 1/2 years ago) than I did then.
I'm a red wine man myself; used to love to drink gin on the rocks. If I did that now . . .
I don't see a ban happening in the U.S. but I do think there will be continued movement on smoking bans in public places. The British government just announced that as of July 1 2007, no smoking will be permitted in British pubs: http://news.independ...
The ban on smoking across England will come into force on 1 July, the Government has announced.It will be outlawed in 124,000 pubs and clubs across the country in one of the most far-reaching cultural changes in decades.
Anyone caught breaking the ban will face a £50 fine. And there will be a £2,500 fine for premises which fail to stop them.
The ban will finally bring to an end the "pint and fag" culture of pubs and the smoke-filled rooms of 18,000 private members' clubs, including working men's clubs, branches of the British Legion and gentlemen's clubs.
***The ban brings England into line with bans in Northern Ireland and Scotland. People in Wales will not be allowed to light up at work or in pubs or clubs from 2 April next year.