Polonium 210

[kwerk]

That is the stuff the Russians used to assassinate that fellow a few years ago.

What's interesting though is commercial tobacco farmers use fertilizer that is full of the stuff. It goes in to the cigarettes and gives the average smoker a significant radiation dose. In fact it could be the polonium that is causing some of the lung cancer, rather than the smoke!

A while ago I saw "organic" cigarettes for sale at the supermarket and thought it was hilarious, but maybe their is something to it?!

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/01/opinion/01proctor.html

 

[Strife212]

lolkwer

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/01/opinion/01proctor.html

 

[aardvark]

significant? more like tiny tiny amounts.

its naturally available and everywhere in small amounts just like any other radioactive material.

 

[Deadbeat]

What's interesting though is commercial tobacco farmers use fertilizer that is full of the stuff.

Tobacco farmers use fertiliser containing a radioactive isotope? Would you care to back up this latest brain fart of yours with some credible reference?

 

[kwerk]

significant? more like tiny tiny amounts.

its naturally available and everywhere in small amounts just like any other radioactive material.

300 chest xrays a year is a significant amount.

 

[kwerk]

Tobacco farmers use fertiliser containing a radioactive isotope? Would you care to back up this latest brain fart of yours with some credible reference?

http://www.epa.gov/radiation/sources/tobacco.html

For example, phosphate fertilizers, favored by the tobacco industry, contain radium and its decay products (including lead-210 and polonium-210). When phosphate fertilizer is spread on tobacco fields year after year, the concentration of lead-210 and polonium-210 in the soil rises.

 

[kwerk]

This one says its more like 500-800 chest xrays.

http://www.georgiahealth.edu/services/ehs/newsletter/winter96.htm

When a person lights a cigarette, the polonium is volatilized, inhaled and quickly deposited in the living tissue of the respiratory system. It is estimated that the person who smokes one and one-half packs of cigarettes for one year receives a radiation dose to their bronchial tissue of approximately 16,000 millirem (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 an hour.

 

[kwerk]

so estimated 16 rem a year, on top of background ionizing radiation from natural radon and cosmic rays.

 

[malfunkshun]

So what you are saying is that 210Po occurs in phosphate fertilisers and that only the tobacco industry uses phosphate fertilizers?

 

[AGD]

What! Smoking is bad for you?!

 

[rubberduck]

What's interesting though is commercial tobacco farmers use fertilizer that is full of the stuff.]

So why don't we get on the case of the fertilizer manufacturers?

 

[MrMoonX]

hopefully this means less dirty smokers = win!

 

[Sliver]

What! Smoking is bad for you?!

lol.

Polonium is absolutely lethal even in small amounts. So if there is polonium is some brands of tobacco, it's clearly only trace amounts. Anything more would mean all the smokers dying off immediately. This is not good business. It's better for the tobacco companies to kill their clients slowly over several decades, that way, they make more profit !

 

[dowie]

its just one of several substances present in cigarettes that could cause you cancer

Arsenic, Benzene, Cadmium, Formaldehyde, Polonium-210, Chromium etc..etc.. about 60 or 70 odd substances that cause cancer are present in cigarettes.

 

[kwerk]

So what you are saying is that 210Po occurs in phosphate fertilisers and that only the tobacco industry uses phosphate fertilizers?

The stickiness of tobacco plants makes them absorb it, then the leaves are cured making it worse, then inhaled directly in to people's lungs.

Bananas for example are quite radioactive too but you aren't smoking 20 of them a day.

 

[twist3d0n3]

The stickiness of tobacco plants makes them absorb it, then the leaves are cured making it worse, then inhaled directly in to people's lungs.

Bananas for example are quite radioactive too but you aren't smoking 20 of them a day.

but surely mass plays a big part there.. you eat a banana; you only smoke a small proportion of a tabacco plant

 

[Mason-]

lol@smokers trying to justify smoking.

"It's not because I smoke that I got cancer, it's because of those pesky farmers!"

 

[Aod]

but surely mass plays a big part there.. you eat a banana; you only smoke a small proportion of a tabacco plant

Bananas only account for about 5% of the mass of a Banana Tree

 

[needforspeed]

This reminds me of Tomacco.

 

[Tefal]

The stickiness of tobacco plants makes them absorb it, then the leaves are cured making it worse, then inhaled directly in to people's lungs.

Bananas for example are quite radioactive too but you aren't smoking 20 of them a day.

the first source you posted said it comes from the soil, and the fertilizer just aids it's uptake.