Now that the former K.G.B. agent Alexander V.
Litvinenko was found to have been poisoned by
radioactive polonium 210 last week, there are some old
facts that are coming to new attention.

The tobacco industry has been aware, 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, Philip Morris scientists
wondered whether the secret to tobacco growers’
longevity in the Caucasus might be that farmers there
avoided phosphate fertilizers.

In 1968, the American Tobacco Company began a secret
research effort to find out about how much polonium
was in cigarettes. The researchers found that smokers
inhale an average of about .04 picocuries of polonium
210 per cigarette. The company also filters did not
trap the polonim isotopes.

A fraction of a trillionth of a curie doesn't sound
like much, however, these are powerful radionuclide
disgorging alpha particles that are considered the
most dangerous kind when it comes to lung cancer. As
it turns out, these are 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.

If .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.

Just thought you'd like to know.

Seth-Deborah Roth RN,DCHT(c),CRNA, NBCCH,
"Combining Medical Knowledge with Hypnosis"TM
Member National Board of Certified Clinical Hypnotherapists
Certified Medical Hypnotherapist & Regiistered Nurse Anesthetist

Hypnotherapy for Health (510) 690-0699
http://www.hypnotherapyforhealth.com
read my blog site http://www.hypnotichealth.blogspot.com
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