Word: polonium
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Harvard School of Public Health, Dr. Edward P. Radford Jr. and Dr. Vilma R. Hunt worked with polonium,* one of the rarest of the naturally occurring elements and until recently one of the hardest to detect. Many radioactive elements are found in tobacco leaves, as in all vegetation; they occur naturally and have nothing to do with man-made fallout, and they have been exonerated as causes of lung cancer. Polonium is different, the Harvard researchers reported in Science, because it vaporizes at a mere 500° C., far below the 800° temperature of a burning cigarette...
Experiments with machine-smoked cigarettes showed that polonium attaches itself to smoke particles and may also pass into the lungs with the inhaled smoke in the form of gas. The amount of polonium in tobacco, as in a tossed green salad, would be negligible if, like the salad, it passed quickly through the system. But the polonium-bearing smoke appears to get trapped in the tissues and crevices of the airways, say Drs. Radford and Hunt. Because of this trapping, they suggest, polonium builds up to concentrations that are high enough so that its radioactivity could begin the process that...
...emphasized, however, that even removing the polonium would not hinder the non-cancer effects of smoking mentioned in the recent government report, such as increased heart disease and bronchitis...
There is reason to believe, Radford said, that the polonium content of pipe and cigar tobacco is about the same as in cigarettes, but that the cancer rate is lower for pipe and cigar smokers since they do not inhale as much. However, he added that cancer of the mouth and esophagus is about as frequent in all smokers...
...researchers findings to date are reproduced in full in this month's issue of Science magazine. Radford and Mrs. Hunt plan to continue their studies of all radioactive elements in tobacco and of the other effects of polonium on the tissue of smokers...