Radioactive Polonium in Tobacco
This website offers a summary of information concerning radioactive elements in tobacco, food, and water. Each footnote contains either a research reference/abstract or a hypertext link followed by a short excerpt from the webpage. A further discussion of polonium in food and water is linked at the bottom of the page.
For over 35 years, researchers and tobacco corporations have known that commercially grown tobacco is contaminated with radioactive elements (1). The contamination is sourced in naturally occurring radioactive radon gas (2) which is absorbed and trapped in apatite rock (3). Apatite is mined for the purpose of formulating the phosphate portion of most chemical fertilizers(4). Polonium releases ionizing alpha radiation which is at least 20 times more harmful than either beta or gamma radiation when exposed to internal organs(5).
Lung cancer rates increased significantly during most of the 1900's (6). Its no coincidence that between 1938 and 1960, the level of polonium 210 in American tobacco tripled commensurate with the increased use of chemical fertilizers and Persistant Organic Pollutant (POP) accumulation(7).
Conservative estimates put the level of radiation absorbed by a pack-and-a-half a day smoker at the equivalent of 300 chest X-rays every year (8). The Office of Radiation, Chemical & Biological Safety at Michigan State University state in their newsletter that the radiation equivalent was as high as 800 chest X-rays per year(9). The National Institute of Health published a radiation exposure chart which shows that smoking 30 cigarettes per day is the equivalent of 2,000 chest x-rays per year.(10) R.T. Ravenholt of the Centers for Disease Control stated that tobacco is the largest source of radiation exposure among the American public(11). Researchers have induced cancer in animal test subjects that inhaled polonium 210 but have not caused cancer through the inhalation of any of the non-radioactive chemical carcinogens found in tobacco(12).
Recently released tobacco corporation internal memos and reports indicate that they were well aware of radiation contamination as early as 1964(13), and had a method to remove polonium from tobacco in 1975(14). In 1977, Phillip Morris confirmed that superphosphate fertilizer was a source of polonium (15).
Indoor radon accumulation is a serious health risk that is responsible for 10% of American lung cancer fatalities or about 15,000 deaths per year (16). Smoking tobacco greatly magnifies the radon risk (17). The needless additional radiation delivered via fertilizer can be reduced through the use of alternative phosphate sources (18) or organic farming techniques (19).
It may be possible to reduce your polonium intake through smoking cessation or merely switching to organically grown tobacco.
FOOTNOTES:
1. Florida State University
Tobacco plants contain high concentrations of a natural radioactive material called polonium-210. This substance remains on the tobacco during the manufacture of cigarettes.
1966 Lorillard Tobacco Internal Memo regarding radioactive polonium in cigarettes
2. British Columbia Provincial Ministry of Health
Radon is a naturally-occurring, radioactive gas which is given off by traces of uranium in soil and rock. It is found at varying levels all over the world….The Ministry of Health estimates that about 100 people a year die of radon induced lung cancer in the Province of British Columbia. Radon likely causes more lung cancers than second hand tobacco smoke.
3. Florida State University Research Paper
It is well documented that apatite strongly sorbs uranium.
4. Mining and Oil Industry Newsletter
The phosphate rock is commercially available as "apatite"….Phosphogypsum is a by-product or tailings product of phosphate production into phosphoric acid. It is created when sulfuric acid is used with phosphate rock to produce phosphoric acid. Phosphoric acid is used in the production of phosphatic fertilizers. Because of other elements present in phosphates deposits such as uranium and cadmium, phosphogypsum typically contains radon and other radioactive materials and can be extremely hazardous.
5. Types of radiation
The three main types of radiation, alpha, beta, and gamma have different penetrating abilities. Alpha radiation to external skin is no hazard because it is likely that the outer (dead) layer of the skin stops all alpha radiation. But if alpha radiation is received internally than the damage to the surrounding tissue is expected to be 20 times more harmful than the expected damages from beta or gamma radiation.
6. Dr. Smith's Health Newsletter
The evidence is definite. Cancer statisticians have had trouble explaining the increased lung cancer rate despite the almost 20 percent reduction in tobacco use in males. It was 4/100,000 in 1930, then 40/100,000 in 1960, and by 1980 it had climbed to about 72/100,000. The same with women, despite the fact that ladies smoke filtered cigarettes which filters out benzopyrine and nitrosamine, two acknowledged carcinogens.
7. Dr. Smith's Health Newsletter
Here may be an explanation: Dr. Jerome Marmorstein found radioactive polonium in the lungs of smokers and in tobacco grown since 1950. Polonium levels tripled in American tobacco between 1938 and 1960.
This radioactive polonium, plus some lead and radium found in cigarettes and the lungs is directly related to the fertilizer used in tobacco farm soil. The Tennessee Valley authority helped fund apatite rock grinding factories for the tobacco farmers. That's where the polonium came from.
Polonium emits the most carcinogenic form of radioactivity known, but has a short half-life (four months). However, it binds with radioactive lead which has a 22 year half-life, and then breaks down into radioactive polonium.
Link to PubMed abstract of Dr. Marmorstein's research on Po-210 in Tobacco 8. Typical School Anti-smoking Campaign Information
POLONIUM: radiation dosage, equal to 300 chest x-rays in one year
9. Safe Science Newsletter, Michigan State University
When you light up a cigarette the polonium is volatilized, you inhale it, and it is quickly deposited in the living tissue of the respiratory system. It is estimated that if you smoke one and a half packs of cigarettes a day for one year the bronchial tissues will receive approximately 16,000 millirem of radiation exposure (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 in any one hour.
10. National Institute of Health - Radiation Safety
11. Tobacco Reference Guide - Chapter 19
R.T. Ravenholt of the Centers for Disease Control hypothesized that the radioactive elements in tobacco smoke might pass through the lungs and into the blood, causing cancers distant from the lung. He believes that smokers are exposed to "far more radiation from the smoking of tobacco than they are from any other source," and Dr. Joseph DiFranza states that the radiation from inhaled smoke could account for half of all lung cancers in smokers.
12. Click here for several informative letters written by tobacco researchers
The importance of proper assessment of the risk to cigarette smokers from radionuclides in the smoke cannot be overstated. In view of the present knowledge, it is improbable that a single area of a few square millimeters of high alpha activity in the bronchial tree is important. Nonetheless, Po210 is the only component in cigarette smoke tar that has produced cancers by itself in laboratory animals as a result of inhalation exposure.
13. 1964 Phillip Morris internal memo regarding radioactive content of tobacco
14. 1975 Phillip Morris internal memo regarding removal of polonium from tobacco
15. 1977 Phillip Morris report on Polonium in Fertilizer
16. "EPA estimates that radon causes about 15,000 lung cancer deaths per year."
17. EPA Risk Assessment of Smoking and Radon Exposure
18. Florida Institute of Phosphate Research
Results indicate that the radionuclides associated with phosphogypsum do not report to the ammonium sulfate product but are found instead almost exclusively in the by-product calcium carbonate.
1980 Philip Morris memo states the removal of polonium is too expensive
The recommendation of using ammonium phosphate instead of calcium phosphate as fertilizer is probably a valid but expensive point.
19. Soil Ammendments for Organic Farming
A couple of things should be mentioned about rock phosphate. First, it is a source of P for long-term soil improvement, don't expect any noticeable effect from it within weeks or months, unless you use huge amounts of it. Second, its solubility, and thus plant availability, depends strongly on soil pH and particle size...
By contrast, P contents of chicken manure, compost, and sludge are relatively low, usually below 3%. Thus, large amounts would be needed to meet P requirement of the crop. Yet, pound for pound, P from these organic sources is quite available to plants; sometimes even more effective than treble superphosphate.
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES:
Pediatrics 1993 Sep;92(3):464-5
Cigarette smoke = radiation hazard.
Evans GD, Department of Pediatrics, Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, Vallejo, CA 94589-2485.
Ohio Med 1987 Feb;83(2):113-6
Tobacco's radiation: its sources and potential hazards.
Rahman SM, Albert CP, Reehal BS
Radiat Res 1980 Jul;83(1):190-6
Alpha Radioactivity in cigarette smoke.
Cohen BS, Eisenbud M, Harley NH
Nature 1974 May 17;249(454):215-7
Radioactivity of tobacco trichomes and insoluble cigarette smoke particles.
Martell EA
Boothe GF. The need for radiation controls in the phosphate and related industries. Health Physics. 32(4):285-90, 1977 Apr.
Morgro-Campero A. Fleischer RL. Upper limits of alpha-radioactivity per particle of cigarette smoke. Health Physics. 32(l), 39-40, 1977.
