http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn11974&feedId=online-news_rss20
Tobacco's radiation dose far higher than leaves at Chernobyl
* 12:00 02 June 2007
* NewScientist.com news service
If nothing else, this should worry smokers: the radiation dose from
radium and polonium found naturally in tobacco can be a thousand times
more than that from the caesium-137 taken up by the leaves from the
Chernobyl nuclear accident.
Constantin Papastefanou from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in
Greece measured radioactivity in tobacco leaves from across the country
and calculated the average radiation dose that would be received by
people smoking 30 cigarettes a day. He found that the dose from natural
radionuclides was 251 microsieverts a year, compared with 0.199 from
Chernobyl fallout in the leaves (Radiation Protection Dosimetry, vol
123, p 68).
Though the radiation dose from smoking was only 10 per cent of the
average dose anyone receives from all natural sources, Papastefanou
argues that it is an increased risk. "Many scientists believe that
cancer deaths among smokers are due to the radioactive content of
tobacco leaves and not to nicotine and tar," he says.
--
Atheist n A person to be pitied in that he is
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—Chaz Bufe, The American Heretic’s Dictionary
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