Subject: Re: Plutinium poisoning: Was Re: Greenpeace: they're not jus
Reply-To: Jimgw@sound.demon.co.uk
Distribution: world
X-Mailer: cppnews $Revision: 1.20 $
Organization: Sound & Vision BBS (UK) 0932 252323
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 22:49:52 +0000

In article <1gqfh7INNhi@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> co940@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Nicholas E. Damato) writes:
>
>Sorry i can't include text from previous messages, but the
>mainframe i call from uses block mode teminals which can't handle
>the full screen editors here on internet.
> 
>a previous message an individual states : One nanogram of          
>plutonium could kill you, to which another reader responds:
>"one Ciggarette could kill you, one glass of milk..etc.)
>" 
>that's not quite a fair criticism.
> 
>Plutonium is perhaps the most toxic substance known,
>one single atom can cause lung cancer and will a lot
>more often than one atom from a puff on a cigarette.
> 
>Plutonium is bad news, plain and simple, and shouldn't
>be talked down or shrugged off.
>ned.
>
>@@@@END
>
>
>
>

Okay, I'll swallow a gram of plutonium, you swallow a gram of nicotine. Let's 
see who dies first....
    The trouble is, an atom of plutonium *could* kill me by giving me lung 
cancer. On the other hand, I'd bet on a meteorite coming through the window 
here and breaking this computer screen before that plutonium decay gave me 
cancer. Plutonium *is* radioactive  - very radioactive. But radioactivity is 
not the terrible beast that everyone seems to think it is. It can cause 
cancer, but so can a hell of a lot of other stuff, including cigarettes. I 
inhale a lot more cigarette smoke than I do plutonium. 
    Aerosol plutonium I agree is very very dangerous, giving a large chance of 
cancer (it's radioactive and hangs round the body a long time) but have you 
*ever* heard of aerosol plutonium actually being released? If you have, tell 
me...
    I think that the whole environmental movement about nuclear power is very 
smug. I hear on the news about Bosnia and Sarajevo, about the West Bank, about 
Northern Ireland, Somalia.... The minor environmental issues have virtually no 
bearing on the world, and never will.... Millions of people dying of 
starvation *matters* to me at least - I get annoyed that people spend so much 
effort and time on the issue of nuclear power which even if it ever goes wrong 
will kill a thousandth of that number, when all they have to do is turn on the 
TV and see how pointless it all is when faced with today's problems.

Cheers, and thanx for getting this far (-:

Flame me if you want....bad flames via email - don't clutter up the net....


James.


-------------
"Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,          | 
"Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell,   |  
"And the profit and the loss.                       |
                              A current under sea   |     James Goldwater
"Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell  |
"He passed the stages of his age and youth,         |  jimgw@sound.demon.co.uk
"Entering the whirlpool.                            |
                         Gentile or Jew,            |-------|
"Oh you who turn the wheel and look to windward,            |
"Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you."  |
                                                            |
      IV - Death by Water, The Wasteland, T.S.Eliot         |
                                                            |



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