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Why cigarettes cause cancer: radiation

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  • Why cigarettes cause cancer: radiation

    They taught this info about polonium 210 in pre-med physiology back in the late 60's;

    "Thirty-two years ago, scientists discovered that tobacco contains high concentrations of radioactivity. The radionuclide it contains is known as polonium-210. Polonium is an alpha emitter and such emitters are the most highly ionizing radiation known to mankind, and they are particularly damaging when they are in contact with living tissue.

    When you light up a cigarette the polonium is volatilized, you inhale it, and it is quickly deposited in the living tissue of the respiratory system. It is estimated that if you smoke one and a half packs of cigarettes a day for one year the bronchial tissues will receive approximately 16,000 millirem of radiation exposure (one chest x-ray could deliver 20 - 30 millirem to the same tissue). In comparison, the federal limits of radiation exposure to the general public from man-made occupational radiation may not exceed 100 millirem per year or 2 millirem in any one hour.

    The current federal regulations require tobacco companies to display the Surgeon General's warning that cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health. Tobacco companies can and do challenge epidemiological studies that show a correlation between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, but there is no way they can challenge the fact that cigarettes contain naturally occurring radioactive polonium and that the tissues of the lungs are exposed to very high levels of ionizing alpha radiation.

    Please take due consideration of the above facts as you think about your own health and the health of others."

    Source: "Safety Line"; The Office of Environmental Health and Safety, Utah State University; Issue 33, Fall 1996

    Note: Aplha particles are helium nuclei with their electrons stripped off. Alpha emitters are typically very long lived, which means that polonium particles lodged in the lungs will continue to irradiate smokers long after they quit.

    The source of all this are impurities naturally occuring in apatite deposits. Apatite contains natural phophates and so is very often used for producing fertilizer. Since it's cheap to mine it's also commonly used in crops like tobacco that require lots of phosphates to properly develop.

    Apatite, unfortunately, is also very often found in close proximity to naturally occuring deposits of radioactive materials like uranium & its decay by-products, radon, polonium, lead and other such nasty stuff. These contaminate the apatite by way of being dissolved in rain and redeposited in the apatite etc.

    Uppance: DON'T START!!!!

    Dr. Mordrid
    Last edited by Dr Mordrid; 29 March 2002, 11:33.
    Dr. Mordrid
    ----------------------------
    An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.

    I carry a gun because I can't throw a rock 1,250 fps

  • #2
    This Actualy sound like pure SciFi!

    on another note:

    Smokers area's should have lead screens
    If there's artificial intelligence, there's bound to be some artificial stupidity.

    Jeremy Clarkson "806 brake horsepower..and that on that limp wrist faerie liquid the Americans call petrol, if you run it on the more explosive jungle juice we have in Europe you'd be getting 850 brake horsepower..."

    Comment


    • #3
      Hey gotta die some how ...even though I dont smoke...also what about all the fallout from the above grount nuclear tests done in the 50's and 60s? I heard that it winded up as some of the dust in your adackt is from those tests....

      Scott
      Why is it called tourist season, if we can't shoot at them?

      Comment


      • #4
        Technoid;

        That's what I thought 30 years ago when I first heard it, but I was convinced when one of our instructors put tobacco stripped out of a pack of cigarettes on the sensor a scintillation detector and set it to count while we went to lunch. When we came back from lunch that counter had recorded a lot of hits....way above normal background.

        Later that week we put said tobacco in a film pack made for contact autoradiography. A nice image of the pile of tobacco was formed in a few days.

        Dr. Mordrid
        Last edited by Dr Mordrid; 29 March 2002, 12:36.
        Dr. Mordrid
        ----------------------------
        An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.

        I carry a gun because I can't throw a rock 1,250 fps

        Comment


        • #5
          This will be another nail in the coffin of those companys who sell cigarettes...
          If there's artificial intelligence, there's bound to be some artificial stupidity.

          Jeremy Clarkson "806 brake horsepower..and that on that limp wrist faerie liquid the Americans call petrol, if you run it on the more explosive jungle juice we have in Europe you'd be getting 850 brake horsepower..."

          Comment


          • #6
            IF people find out about it, sure. But this info's been out there for 30+ years and I have yet to see anything on a news TV magazine show or in a print magazine about it.

            Go figure.....

            GT98;

            Most of the fallout was in the form of short lived isotopes.

            Most of these had a half life (time it takes for the radiation output to halve) of 1-5 weeks, but in the interim it found its way into milk and meats due to the animals eating the grass that it fell on.

            Crops were similarly affected, but simple washing would remove most of the contamination. Of course by doing this the water was then contaminated and very often recycled into the water systems so....

            In the end kids drank the milk and water, ate the other products and as a result there is a higher instance of thyroid disease in those generations. Adults were less affected because they were no longer developing.

            Longer lived byproducts were less numerous, but are still around at low levels...particularly in western states downwind from the Nevada test sites and in the midwest.

            Dr. Mordrid
            Last edited by Dr Mordrid; 29 March 2002, 12:50.
            Dr. Mordrid
            ----------------------------
            An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.

            I carry a gun because I can't throw a rock 1,250 fps

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Technoid
              This will be another nail in the coffin of those companys who sell cigarettes...
              Why do you think we call them coffin nails here?
              chuck

              PS I was a 4 pack a day smoker when I quit. Dont Start!!!!
              Chuck
              秋音的爸爸

              Comment


              • #8
                I agree cjolley... Don't start!

                Tho this is one of my most basic agruments against not only the tobbacco companies, but those whom taxed to begeesus out of them for all those years and have taken claim in the lawsuit bonanza
                "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." -- Dr. Seuss

                "Always do good. It will gratify some and astonish the rest." ~Mark Twain

                Comment


                • #9
                  And I agree with Greebe!

                  How can anyone claime that they did not realise that inhaling the fumes from something you burn is not hazardus to your health??
                  Last edited by Technoid; 29 March 2002, 13:50.
                  If there's artificial intelligence, there's bound to be some artificial stupidity.

                  Jeremy Clarkson "806 brake horsepower..and that on that limp wrist faerie liquid the Americans call petrol, if you run it on the more explosive jungle juice we have in Europe you'd be getting 850 brake horsepower..."

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    It all depends on what you are burning.....Could make you feel real Good

                    Paul
                    "Never interfere with the enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself"

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      and for the dyslexic among us we have... How to say Greebe
                      "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." -- Dr. Seuss

                      "Always do good. It will gratify some and astonish the rest." ~Mark Twain

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Greebe
                        and for the dyslexic among us we have... How to say Greebe
                        Changed it "Grumpy" .

                        And Yes I do suffer from dyslexia....
                        If there's artificial intelligence, there's bound to be some artificial stupidity.

                        Jeremy Clarkson "806 brake horsepower..and that on that limp wrist faerie liquid the Americans call petrol, if you run it on the more explosive jungle juice we have in Europe you'd be getting 850 brake horsepower..."

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          LOL I'm hardly grumpy
                          "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." -- Dr. Seuss

                          "Always do good. It will gratify some and astonish the rest." ~Mark Twain

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Technoid
                            ...How can anyone claime that they did not realise that inhaling the fumes from something you burn is not hazardus to your health??
                            I was 14 when I started to smoke in 1966.
                            Damn straight I blame the drug pushing tobacco companies.
                            chuck
                            Chuck
                            秋音的爸爸

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              yeah, and i was 4 when my family moved to a new house with a fireplace(more like a incinerator or heater?) and experienced a living room filled with smoke and I did not think that it was good for my health!!!

                              And tobacco smoke is even more acrid!!

                              but

                              I do think that most of the blame is on the tobacco companys....

                              they are literaly selling death...
                              If there's artificial intelligence, there's bound to be some artificial stupidity.

                              Jeremy Clarkson "806 brake horsepower..and that on that limp wrist faerie liquid the Americans call petrol, if you run it on the more explosive jungle juice we have in Europe you'd be getting 850 brake horsepower..."

                              Comment

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