Chapter 19 Tobacco ingredients, additives, and radioactivity

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A poem relating to disclosure of tobacco ingredients was presented by Judy Knapp at

the Tenth National Conference on Nicotine Dependence in Minneapolis on October

18, 1997: "Say you wanna bum some cadmium? Need a kick of arsenic? Gotta get

fried on formaldehyde? Can we loan ya a bit of ammonia? Can it go to your head a

shot of lead?"

Tenth National Conference on Nicotine Dependence in Minneapolis on October

18, 1997

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Alpha particles from polonium-210 are powerful mutagens, perhaps 100 times more

than equal number of rads of gamma radiation. The lungs, blood, and liver of smokers

contain a much higher concentration of polomium-210 than those of nonsmokers, and

the radiation dose to the lower lobe bifurcations of the lung is estimated to be up to

200 REM each 25 years.

NEJM, 273:1344, 1965 and 307:311, 1982

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Tobacco leaves concentrate radioactive polonium-210 and lead-210 from the

phosphate fertilizers that are commonly used in tobacco cultivation. C.R. Hill at the

Institute for Cancer Research in England suggested that natural fallout from radon 222

might account for the radioactivity of tobacco smoke. 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.

Cancer Wars, p. 306

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Thursday, July 06, 2000

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