quote:In an environmental impact statement NASA was required to file before making final flight plans, the space agency indicated a 1-in-620 chance exists of an accident on liftoff that would release some amount of plutonium into the environment.
quote:NASA critic Karl Grossman, author of "The Wrong Stuff: The Space Program's Nuclear Threat to Our Planet," said he doesn't agree with NASA's interpretation of the risks.
Is NASA again crossing its fingers and hoping?" he asked. "If it's 2 percent or it's 6 percent or if it's 20 percent or if it's 100 percent, when you're talking about plutonium, you're talking about the most toxic radioactive substance known.
I think most people have heard it said that plutonium is either the "most toxic" or perhaps in the top few "most toxic" things known. (The second quote above uses "the most toxic radioactive substance known" which is kind of odd because there really aren't all that many radioactive substances. Kind of like saying "he is the tallest left handed, red-haired, midget NBA player from McMordo Station in Antarctica".)
Snopes references the FBI (but no actual cite and I can't find any FBI documentation for it) as saying Plutonium is the second most toxic substance known (Snopes article on Ricin).
quote:All isotopes and compounds of plutonium are toxic and radioactive. While plutonium is sometimes described in media reports as "the most toxic substance known to man", there is general agreement among experts in the field that this is incorrect. As of 2003, there has yet to be a single human death officially attributed to plutonium exposure. Naturally-occurring radium is about 200 times more radiotoxic than plutonium, and some organic toxins like Botulin toxin are still more toxic. Botulin toxin, in particular, has a lethal dose of 300pg/kg, far less than the quantity of plutonium that poses a significant cancer risk. In addition, beta and gamma emitters (including the C-14 and K-40 in nearly all food) can cause cancer on casual contact, which alpha emitters cannot.
Orally, plutonium is less toxic (non-oncogenically speaking) than several common substances, including caffeine, acetaminophen, some vitamins, pseudoephedrine, and any number of plants and fungi. It is perhaps somewhat more toxic than pure ethanol, but less so than tobacco and many illegal drugs (some such as marijuana are negligibly toxic). From a purely chemical standpoint, its toxicity is probably on par with lead and other heavy metals.
So, is the "extreme toxicity of plutonium" a UL?
Should a Snopes entry on plutonium toxicity be done?
Should the Snopes' Ricin entry, which mentions plutonium toxicity, be reexamined?
Posts: 629 | From: Greenwood, IN | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:Originally posted by jimmy101: The Wikipedia article on Plutonium gives a completely different view on the toxicity of Plutonium.
quote: Orally, plutonium is less toxic (non-oncogenically speaking) than several common substances, including caffeine, acetaminophen, some vitamins, pseudoephedrine, and any number of plants and fungi. It is perhaps somewhat more toxic than pure ethanol, but less so than tobacco and many illegal drugs (some such as marijuana are negligibly toxic). From a purely chemical standpoint, its toxicity is probably on par with lead and other heavy metals.
As accurate as an analysis of the toxicity of plutonium from a chemical standpoint might be, it is irrelevant to its true toxicity. For a more balanced viewpoint:
quote:Plutonium exposure may produce acute health effects (e.g., inhalation may lead to pulmonary edema, and ingestion to damage to GI tract walls), or long-term effects, such as increased risk of cancer mortality. Relatively high doses are required to produce acute effects. Ingestion of about 0.5 grams of plutonium would be necessary to deliver an acutely lethal dose.[6] (For comparison, ingestion of less than 0.1 gram of cyanide can cause sudden death.[7]) Inhalation of about 20 milligrams of plutonium dust of optimal size would be necessary to cause death within roughly a month from pulmonary fibrosis or pulmonary edema.[8] As we explain below, it is hard to imagine scenarios in which a person would ingest or inhale such quantities of plutonium.
Though .5 grams per lethal dose makes plutonium less lethal than cyanide, it's still the same amount as a rather routine dose of aspirin or tylenol. However, that also makes it considerably less lethal than the 'second most toxic substance known'.
buf 'voting UL' ungla
-------------------- "Pardon him. Theodotus: he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature."
George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra Posts: 4847 | From: Washington, DC | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
I agree bugungla, the wiki article might overstate the safety somewhat. And, Wiki tended to split non-radiation affects from radiation affects.
The relative tox of acetaminophen etc. may still be correct since Wiki was talking about just the chemical toxicity but the Lawrence Livermore National Lab paper is talking about radioactive damage to the GI tract. It takes about 0.5grams orally for death from radiation affects. That is certainly toxic, even perhaps "very toxic" but it is nowhere near the most toxic of compounds. Ricin and others are thousands of times more toxic than oral plutonium. Indeed, by my reading, the "chemical only" toxicity of plutonium is similar to many other heavy metals like mercury or lead.
In any case, there is no doubt (According to LLNL) that the toxicity (chemical and radioactive) of plutonium is greatly exaggerated.
Spreading 24 pounds of plutonium around would be pretty bad. But not as bad as terrorists stealing 24 pounds of plutonium to be used as a poison. But there are a lot of toxins that terrorists could steal (or make) that would be much much much worse than plutonium.
Posts: 629 | From: Greenwood, IN | Registered: Dec 2005
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