MarketNeutral
26th April 2010, 01:30 PM
Tobacco is a hidden radioactive serial killer
When Did Tobacco Companies (and subsequently Governments) Know About This Killer - Polonium 210 - and How Long Have They Known?
"Former United States Surgeon General C. Everett Koop (1982 - 1989) stated that radioactivity, rather than tar, accounts for at least 90% of all smoking-related lung cancers. The American Center for Disease Control concluded: 'Americans are exposed to far more radiation from tobacco smoke than from any other source.' "
(Lung cancer went) "From a rarity in 1930 (4/100,000 per year) to the No. 1 cancer killer in 1980 (72/100,000)."
"For 40 yearsTobacco companies have covered up the fact that cigarette smoke contains a dangerous radioactive substance that exposes heavy smokers to the radiation equivalent of having 300 chest X-rays a year.
"Internal company records reveal that cigarette manufacturers knew that tobacco contained polonium-210 but avoided drawing public attention to the fact for fear of “waking a sleeping giantâ€." - ciggifree.com
Smokers - You are inhaling the same poison that killed former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London, November 2006!
"Customers at a restaurant and a hotel visited by the poisoned ex-KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko will be tested for the radioactive substance that killed him, Polonium 210, said British health chiefs on Friday" according to British newspapers.
The British were worried.
SCIENTISTS KNEW BEFORE 1980
"Polonium 210 is an alpha emitter that has a half-life of 138.376 days (about four and a half months - ed), decaying directly to its stable daughter isotope, polonium 206.
"A milligram of polonium 210 emits about as many alpha particles per second as 4.5 grams of radon 226.
" ... Because of the short range of absorption, alphas are not generally dangerous to life unless the source is ingested or inhaled, in which case, they become extremely dangerous.
"Because of this high mass and strong absorption, if alpha emitting radionuclides do enter the body ( ... inhaled or ingested), alpha radiation is the most destructive form of ionizing radiation.
"It is the most strongly ionizing, and with large enough doses can cause any or all of the symptoms of radiation poisoning. It is estimated that chromosome damage from alpha particles is about 100 times greater than that caused by an equivalent amount of other radiation.
" ... A single gram of polonium 210 generates 140 watts of power. Because it emits many alpha particles, which are stopped within a very short distance in dense media and release their energy, polonium 210 has been used as a lightweight heat source to power thermoelectric cells in artificial satellites; for instance, a polonium 210 heat source was ... used in each of the russian Lunokhod rovers deployed on the surface of the Moon to keep their internal components warm during the lunar nights." - Wikipedia.
Polonium 210 is the only component of cigarette smoke that has produced cancers by itself in laboratory animals by inhalation - tumors that appear at a level FIVE TIMES LOWER than from a heavy smoker's dose.
LUNG CANCER WAS RARE BEFORE 1930
Lung cancer rates among American men kept climbing from a rarity in 1930 (4/100,000 per year) to the No. 1 cancer killer in 1980 (72/100,000) in spite of an almost 20 percent reduction in smoking through anti-smoking information campaigns. But during the same period, the level of polonium 210 in American tobacco had tripled, coinciding with the increase in the use of cheaper phosphate fertilizers by tobacco growers - calcium phosphate ore accumulates uranium and slowly releases radon gas.
"As radon decays, its electrically charged daughter products (including Polonium 210) attach themselves to dust particles, which adhere to the sticky hairs on the underside of tobacco leaves. This leaves a deposit of radioactive polonium and lead on the leaves. Then, the intense localized heat in the burning tip of a cigarette volatilizes the radioactive metals. While cigarette filters can trap chemical carcinogens, they are ineffective against radioactive vapors.
"The lungs of a chronic smoker end up with a radioactive lining in a concentration much higher than from residential radon." - Lenntech Water treatment & air purification Holding B.V. Rotterdamseweg 402 M.
Smoking two packs of cigarettes a day imparts a Polonium 210-emitted alpha particle radiation dose of about 1,300 millirem per year. For comparison, the annual radiation dose to the average American from inhaled radon is 200 mrem.
In addition, polonium 210 is soluble and is circulated through the body to every tissue and cell in levels much higher than from residential radon. The proof is that it can be found in the blood and urine of smokers. The circulating polonium 210 causes genetic damage and early death from diseases reminiscent of early radiological pioneers: liver and bladder cancer, stomach ulcer, leukemia, cirrhosis of the liver and cardiovascular diseases.
Former United States Surgeon General C. Everett Koop stated that radioactivity, rather than tar, accounts for at least 90% of all smoking-related lung cancers. The American Center for Disease Control concluded: "Americans are exposed to far more radiation from tobacco smoke than from any other source."
Cigarette smoking accounts for 30% of all cancer deaths.
Only poor diet rivals tobacco smoke as a cause of cancer in the U.S., causing a comparable number of fatalities each year. However, the National Cancer Institute, with an annual budget of $500 million, has no active funding for research of radiation from smoking or residential radon as a cause of lung cancer, presumably to protect the public from undue fears of radiation from smoking tobacco.
Corruption, anyone?
Back to Litvinenko and the British government's worries - "British Health Protection Agency last week called for people who had been to the Itsu sushi restaurant (where Litvinenko was poisoned) or Millennium Hotel in central London on November 1 to come forward."
The appeal came as the Conservatives indicated that they would ask the Government to make a Commons statement over the affair.
According to the press at the time, "The HPA is taking "extremely seriously" concerns that other people may have been contaminated by the Polonium 210 that led to the death of Alexander Litvinenko in hospital although it made clear "the risk was low."
"Doctors discovered that he had somehow ingested a large dose of the radioactive substance and samples of it were later found in the hotel and restaurant.
"Mr. Litvinenko, a former colonel in the Russian security services, visited both places on November 1, the day he was taken ill.
"A vocal opponent of Vladimir Putin, Mr. Litvinenko, 43, claimed in a statement made public after his death that the Russian president had had him poisoned.
"Scotland Yard's counter terrorism unit is investigating but has not described it as murder. Foreign Office officials have passed on a request via the Russian Ambassador, Yuri Fedotov, asking authorities in Moscow to make available any information that might assist police with their enquiries.
"A post-mortem examination of Mr. Litvinenko's body has been delayed while a risk assessment is carried out to see if it is safe to perform the procedure and what precautions may be necessary.
"Polonium-210 is very dangerous to handle in even tiny amounts - milligram or microgram amounts - and special equipment and strict control is necessary.
"Human damage arises from the complete absorption of the alpha particle energy Polonium 210 emits, which is captured by soft tissue.
"Sources maintain that it is not only a very unusual method of assassination, but also that not even fiction writers have bothered with it as a difficult-to-detect murder weapon.
Breathe … IN!
SEQUEL
I followed up this story at the time - throughout 2006 - and discovered that British Health, in conjunction with Britain's largest Cancer charity, Cancer Research UK, had put together five anti-smoking tv commercials, two of which exposed polonium 210 as an ingredient in tobacco products. An ad campaign takes about a year from conception to airing. The Cancer campaign cost some fifty thousand pounds or ten k per commercial - nothing compared to tax revenues, but a sterling effort!
(British tax revenue alone went from 1.1 billion pounds in 1990 to 1.8 billion in 1996 where it has remained until today while American tobacco tax revenue went from $3.363bn in 1977 $15.834bn in 2007.)
The campaign included a saturation of beer coasters warning of polonium 210 in cigarettes, which were distributed throughout the North Country.
Immediately after Litvinenko's death, the coasters were recalled.
The campaign was flighted a few weeks later sans the two polonium commercials (40% of the ad budget cut) "because we did not want to embarrass Litvinenko's family" according to reports in the British press attributed to a British Health spokesperson and perhaps at my persistence in asking why the poloniuim commercials were left out of the campaign.
All subsequent correspondence on the matter between myself, British Health, the newspapers that carried the 'embarrassment' story and the studio that produced the commercials has been ignored to this day.
The story was not picked up by any Mainstream Media except the New York Times, which simply reported the scientific findings listed above by Robert N. Proctor, a professor of the history of science at Stanford University. .
Just how powerful IS the Tobacco Lobby?
http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/491503-tom-dennen/64201-just-how-devious-and-powerful-is-the-tobacco-lobby
When Did Tobacco Companies (and subsequently Governments) Know About This Killer - Polonium 210 - and How Long Have They Known?
"Former United States Surgeon General C. Everett Koop (1982 - 1989) stated that radioactivity, rather than tar, accounts for at least 90% of all smoking-related lung cancers. The American Center for Disease Control concluded: 'Americans are exposed to far more radiation from tobacco smoke than from any other source.' "
(Lung cancer went) "From a rarity in 1930 (4/100,000 per year) to the No. 1 cancer killer in 1980 (72/100,000)."
"For 40 yearsTobacco companies have covered up the fact that cigarette smoke contains a dangerous radioactive substance that exposes heavy smokers to the radiation equivalent of having 300 chest X-rays a year.
"Internal company records reveal that cigarette manufacturers knew that tobacco contained polonium-210 but avoided drawing public attention to the fact for fear of “waking a sleeping giantâ€." - ciggifree.com
Smokers - You are inhaling the same poison that killed former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London, November 2006!
"Customers at a restaurant and a hotel visited by the poisoned ex-KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko will be tested for the radioactive substance that killed him, Polonium 210, said British health chiefs on Friday" according to British newspapers.
The British were worried.
SCIENTISTS KNEW BEFORE 1980
"Polonium 210 is an alpha emitter that has a half-life of 138.376 days (about four and a half months - ed), decaying directly to its stable daughter isotope, polonium 206.
"A milligram of polonium 210 emits about as many alpha particles per second as 4.5 grams of radon 226.
" ... Because of the short range of absorption, alphas are not generally dangerous to life unless the source is ingested or inhaled, in which case, they become extremely dangerous.
"Because of this high mass and strong absorption, if alpha emitting radionuclides do enter the body ( ... inhaled or ingested), alpha radiation is the most destructive form of ionizing radiation.
"It is the most strongly ionizing, and with large enough doses can cause any or all of the symptoms of radiation poisoning. It is estimated that chromosome damage from alpha particles is about 100 times greater than that caused by an equivalent amount of other radiation.
" ... A single gram of polonium 210 generates 140 watts of power. Because it emits many alpha particles, which are stopped within a very short distance in dense media and release their energy, polonium 210 has been used as a lightweight heat source to power thermoelectric cells in artificial satellites; for instance, a polonium 210 heat source was ... used in each of the russian Lunokhod rovers deployed on the surface of the Moon to keep their internal components warm during the lunar nights." - Wikipedia.
Polonium 210 is the only component of cigarette smoke that has produced cancers by itself in laboratory animals by inhalation - tumors that appear at a level FIVE TIMES LOWER than from a heavy smoker's dose.
LUNG CANCER WAS RARE BEFORE 1930
Lung cancer rates among American men kept climbing from a rarity in 1930 (4/100,000 per year) to the No. 1 cancer killer in 1980 (72/100,000) in spite of an almost 20 percent reduction in smoking through anti-smoking information campaigns. But during the same period, the level of polonium 210 in American tobacco had tripled, coinciding with the increase in the use of cheaper phosphate fertilizers by tobacco growers - calcium phosphate ore accumulates uranium and slowly releases radon gas.
"As radon decays, its electrically charged daughter products (including Polonium 210) attach themselves to dust particles, which adhere to the sticky hairs on the underside of tobacco leaves. This leaves a deposit of radioactive polonium and lead on the leaves. Then, the intense localized heat in the burning tip of a cigarette volatilizes the radioactive metals. While cigarette filters can trap chemical carcinogens, they are ineffective against radioactive vapors.
"The lungs of a chronic smoker end up with a radioactive lining in a concentration much higher than from residential radon." - Lenntech Water treatment & air purification Holding B.V. Rotterdamseweg 402 M.
Smoking two packs of cigarettes a day imparts a Polonium 210-emitted alpha particle radiation dose of about 1,300 millirem per year. For comparison, the annual radiation dose to the average American from inhaled radon is 200 mrem.
In addition, polonium 210 is soluble and is circulated through the body to every tissue and cell in levels much higher than from residential radon. The proof is that it can be found in the blood and urine of smokers. The circulating polonium 210 causes genetic damage and early death from diseases reminiscent of early radiological pioneers: liver and bladder cancer, stomach ulcer, leukemia, cirrhosis of the liver and cardiovascular diseases.
Former United States Surgeon General C. Everett Koop stated that radioactivity, rather than tar, accounts for at least 90% of all smoking-related lung cancers. The American Center for Disease Control concluded: "Americans are exposed to far more radiation from tobacco smoke than from any other source."
Cigarette smoking accounts for 30% of all cancer deaths.
Only poor diet rivals tobacco smoke as a cause of cancer in the U.S., causing a comparable number of fatalities each year. However, the National Cancer Institute, with an annual budget of $500 million, has no active funding for research of radiation from smoking or residential radon as a cause of lung cancer, presumably to protect the public from undue fears of radiation from smoking tobacco.
Corruption, anyone?
Back to Litvinenko and the British government's worries - "British Health Protection Agency last week called for people who had been to the Itsu sushi restaurant (where Litvinenko was poisoned) or Millennium Hotel in central London on November 1 to come forward."
The appeal came as the Conservatives indicated that they would ask the Government to make a Commons statement over the affair.
According to the press at the time, "The HPA is taking "extremely seriously" concerns that other people may have been contaminated by the Polonium 210 that led to the death of Alexander Litvinenko in hospital although it made clear "the risk was low."
"Doctors discovered that he had somehow ingested a large dose of the radioactive substance and samples of it were later found in the hotel and restaurant.
"Mr. Litvinenko, a former colonel in the Russian security services, visited both places on November 1, the day he was taken ill.
"A vocal opponent of Vladimir Putin, Mr. Litvinenko, 43, claimed in a statement made public after his death that the Russian president had had him poisoned.
"Scotland Yard's counter terrorism unit is investigating but has not described it as murder. Foreign Office officials have passed on a request via the Russian Ambassador, Yuri Fedotov, asking authorities in Moscow to make available any information that might assist police with their enquiries.
"A post-mortem examination of Mr. Litvinenko's body has been delayed while a risk assessment is carried out to see if it is safe to perform the procedure and what precautions may be necessary.
"Polonium-210 is very dangerous to handle in even tiny amounts - milligram or microgram amounts - and special equipment and strict control is necessary.
"Human damage arises from the complete absorption of the alpha particle energy Polonium 210 emits, which is captured by soft tissue.
"Sources maintain that it is not only a very unusual method of assassination, but also that not even fiction writers have bothered with it as a difficult-to-detect murder weapon.
Breathe … IN!
SEQUEL
I followed up this story at the time - throughout 2006 - and discovered that British Health, in conjunction with Britain's largest Cancer charity, Cancer Research UK, had put together five anti-smoking tv commercials, two of which exposed polonium 210 as an ingredient in tobacco products. An ad campaign takes about a year from conception to airing. The Cancer campaign cost some fifty thousand pounds or ten k per commercial - nothing compared to tax revenues, but a sterling effort!
(British tax revenue alone went from 1.1 billion pounds in 1990 to 1.8 billion in 1996 where it has remained until today while American tobacco tax revenue went from $3.363bn in 1977 $15.834bn in 2007.)
The campaign included a saturation of beer coasters warning of polonium 210 in cigarettes, which were distributed throughout the North Country.
Immediately after Litvinenko's death, the coasters were recalled.
The campaign was flighted a few weeks later sans the two polonium commercials (40% of the ad budget cut) "because we did not want to embarrass Litvinenko's family" according to reports in the British press attributed to a British Health spokesperson and perhaps at my persistence in asking why the poloniuim commercials were left out of the campaign.
All subsequent correspondence on the matter between myself, British Health, the newspapers that carried the 'embarrassment' story and the studio that produced the commercials has been ignored to this day.
The story was not picked up by any Mainstream Media except the New York Times, which simply reported the scientific findings listed above by Robert N. Proctor, a professor of the history of science at Stanford University. .
Just how powerful IS the Tobacco Lobby?
http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/491503-tom-dennen/64201-just-how-devious-and-powerful-is-the-tobacco-lobby