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Plutonium Particle Toxicity Myth

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Abstract

Single large radioactive particles are not carcinogenic in the lung. Plutonium dioxide is not the most toxic chemical compound known. About a million grams of plutonium have been initially entrained in the air from nuclear weapon testing. An initial inhaled concentration of >100,000 submicron diameter 239-plutonium dioxide particles per gram lung are associated with formation of large particle aggregates in the lung, giving a threshold dose to the lung of about 1 Gy for lung tumor development in rats, dogs and humans. Evidence of radiation hormesis has been found in animals and plutonium workers. A nuclear technician accidentally exposed to americium, delivering enormous radiation doses to the lung, liver and skeleton, died eleven years later at the age of 75 without any evidence of cancer. USTUR participants lived ten years longer than those not exposed to high levels of transuranics.

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance (George Bernard Shaw).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Robert G Brooks, brother of Tony Brooks from S.A.R.I., participated in ‘Desert Rock’ as a military observer and ‘guinea pig’ during and after the detonation of an atomic bomb at the Nevada Test Site in 1951. He was placed in a 4-foot deep trench 3500 yards from ground zero. The detonation occurred atop a 200 foot tower. The yield of the bomb was ~15 ktn. Brooks said he saw a blinding flash of bright, white light that penetrated his eyes even though they were closed…A wave of heat engulfed me like the opening of a furnace door. This was followed by a giant explosion louder than a thousand claps of thunder. The ground shook as if an earthquake had hit causing the sand bags on the edge of the trench to topple in. Overhead, a blast of wind, laden with sand, stones, pieces of sage brush and metal loomed past as if carried by a hurricane. At the all clear the soldiers got out of the trenches and walked toward the tower. A huge ball of fire, turning from white to orange to bright red was raising itself toward the sky and a stem of dust was shooting up from the ground to meet it forming a giant mushroom, which zoomed to 50,000 feet. Robert Brooks died at the age of 89 of a heart attack.

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  1. Scientists for Accuarate Radiation Information, Loveland, Colorado, USA

    Charles L. Sanders

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Sanders, C.L. (2017). Plutonium Particle Toxicity Myth. In: Radiobiology and Radiation Hormesis . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56372-5_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56372-5_5

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