Plutonium is not dangerous

Quote:

"Vendicar Decarian" <VD@Pyro.net> wrote in message
news:R1kDb.7557$8Y4.312774@read2.cgocable.net...
Several supporters of Nuclear Power have offered to eat a gram or two.

"George" <george@george.net> wrote in message
news:yEkDb.6$Xd6.3@bignews6.bellsouth.net...
Thye'd be doing us all a service if they did.

From: Rick Tarara (rbtarara@sprynet.com)
Subject: Re: Missing Plutonium

I didn't say the calculations were wrong (or that I didn't support the
main
message)--only that Cohen didn't expect everything he said to be taken
seriously--at least by the scientific community (e.g. 'build thousands of
nuclear power plants.) I was present for a planning meeting back in the
early 70's when Dr. Cohen specifically called for physicists (mostly
nuclear physicists--but not nuclear energy people) to challenge and rebut
some of the anti-nuke types of that era. Realizing that the rhetoric of
that latter group was more likely to grab the public's attention than the
dry 'scientific' reports of the researchers, he called for using the same
tactics and techniques as the detractors. This led him into things such
as
his later symposium referred to in my note, and offers to eat plutonium
etc. I'm not criticizing, only pointing out that his crusade was to
counter the anti-nuke zealots using their own medicine. Viewed from the
outside, some would then view Cohen as a kook if not aware his 'kookiness'
was very practiced and deliberate.

...

From: John McCarthy (jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU)
Subject: Re: ....supporting 20 billion perople....

Bernard Cohen is Professor of Physics at the University of Pittsburgh.
He is (or was) chairman of the physics department and is (or was)
president of the Health Physics Society, the professional organization
of people concerned with radiological safety.

Concerned with the exaggerations of the toxicity of plutonium, he
did some calculations and offered

1. to eat a gram of plutonium oxide.

2. to breathe a liter of air in containing plutonium particles that
had remained in suspension for one minute.

He calculated that the additional risks he would incur by doing this
were equivalent to taking a six months sabbatical in Denver, Colorado,
where the background radioactivity is higher because of the 5,000
foot altitude.

Note that he specified plutionium oxide. This inert compound is what
is used in reactor fuel. Methylated plutonium and probably plutonium
metal would have poisoned him. Plutonium poisoning is like that due
to lead or arsenic, apparently a generic heavy metal poisoning.

Also unless the particles are very small, they will drop out of
suspension in air.

Needless to say, it would have been quite an undertaking to persuade
the Department of Energy to loan the plutonium for the experiment.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.