Word: polonium
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...only way to relieve the danger of lung cancer from cigarette smoking is to remove the polonium, Radford said last night. He suggested that the tobacco companies would find it "economically feasible to treat tobacco leaves chemically" to remove the polonium...
...Edward P. Radford, associate professor of Physiology, and Mrs. Vilma Rose Hunt '58, research associate in Physiology, released late yesterday a preliminary report which names polonium 210 as the element in cigarette smoke which produces cancer. This conclusion is based on studies they have been conducting since last August...
...smoking two packs of cigarettes a day for 25 years, they say, polonium deposited in the bronchial linings may deliver a radiation dose at least seven times the normal radiation exposure of non-smokers. It has been known for many years that ionizing radiation can produce cancer in man, but this report is the first to suggest that radic-isotopes in cigarettes are involved in the production of lung cancer...
...Polonium, the researchers maintain, occurs naturally in the tobacco leaf, since it is absorbed through the roots of all green plants from the soil. It is also absorbed to a lesser degree from "natural fallout" in the atmosphere...
Vaporization of polonium occurs at the burning temperature of the cigarette (1112 to 1472 degrees Fahrenheit), and it is carried into the lungs by attaching itself to the inhaled smoke particles, according to the report's findings. Most of it is eventually taken up by "scavenger cells" and carried over the bronchial lining to the throat...