Radioactive polonium in tobacco

[kinabaloo]

It is not just combustion and TSNAs that problematic in tobacco, but also radioactive polonium.

Haven't time to study it in depth right now, but it is well known and apparently due to the fertilisers used.

tobacco polonium - Google Search

The base-acid (alkaloids only) approach to WTA should avoid nearly all the polonium.

 

[kinabaloo]

"tobacco is especially effective at absorbing radioactive elements from phosphate fertilizers, and also from naturally occurring radiation in the soil, air, and water.3

To grow what the tobacco industry calls "more flavorful" tobacco, US farmers use high-phosphate fertilizers. The phosphate is taken from a rock mineral, apatite, that is ground into powder, dissolved in acid and further processed. Apatite rock also contains radium, and the radioactive elements lead 210 and polonium 210. The radioactivity of common chemical fertilizer can be verified with a Geiger-Mueller counter and an open sack of everyday 13-13-13 type of fertilizer (or any other chemical fertilizer high in phosphate content).4

Conservative estimates put the level of radiation absorbed by a pack-and-a-half a day smoker at the equivalent of 300 chest X-rays every year.5 The Office of Radiation, Chemical & Biological Safety at Michigan State University reports that the radiation level for the same smoker was as high as 800 chest X-rays per year.6 Another report argues that a typical nicotine user might be getting the equivalent of almost 22,000 chest X-rays per year."

- Radioactive tobacco

 

[kinabaloo]

"US Surgeon General C Everett Koop stated on national television in 1990 that tobacco radiation is probably responsible for 90% of tobacco-related cancer.8 Dr RT Ravenholt, former director of World Health Surveys at the Centers for Disease Control, has stated that "Americans are exposed to far more radiation from tobacco smoke than from any other source."9

Researchers have induced cancer in animal test subjects that inhaled polonium 210, but were unable to cause cancer through the inhalation of any of the non-radioactive chemical carcinogens found in tobacco.10 The most potent non-radioactive chemical, benzopyrene*, exists in cigarettes in amounts sufficient to account for only 1% of the cancer found in smokers."

- Radioactive tobacco

The use of cheap fertiliser made from Uranium mining spoil has been known for decades as the major cause of smoking related cancer !

It's not something about the tobacco, or the combustion - the harm is predominantly due to the fertiliser !!

This is the world run by MBAs rather than PHDs - the world of greed and cheap reactors and risk-taking, media control and imperialist slaughter ...

~~~

Fluoride poison, that rots bones and teeth and makes them brittle and fracture, as well as destroying the brain, has a very similar source.

~~~

Heard about the polonium during a radio show by http://whatreallyhappened.com/

I knew smoke had some heavy metals but this was a big shock and has been kept quiet for many decades.

~~~~

* Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or PAHs are a group of powerful cancer-causing chemicals that can damage DNA. One of these – benzo(a)pyrene, or BAP, is one of the most widely studied of all tobacco poisons. BAP directly damages p53, a gene that normally protects our bodies against cancer.

 

[kinabaloo]

This polonium revelation led me to look again at acrolein.

Acrolein is one of the most abundant chemicals in cigarette smoke. Recent experiments show that acrolein can cause DNA damage that is similar to the damage seen in lung cancer patients. Since smoke contains up to 1,000 times more acrolein than other DNA-damaging chemicals, it could be a major cause of lung cancer.

Acrolein also stops our cells from repairing DNA damage (like arsenic and cadmium). And like hydrogen cyanide, it kills the tiny motorised hairs that normally help to clean out our lungs of other toxins.

Acrolein might come in as second most damaging smoke constituent. And similarly it is there primarily not as part of tobacco, but an additive in this case (VG stops tobacco drying out).

I might adjust my assessment of the dangers of VG in vaping, especially now that LR atties are more common.

 

[kinabaloo]

Relating to acrolein: the danger to a large extent is one of overload through combined toxins (the exception being the radioactives); possibly also some synergies among the toxins; so for acrolein, the danger is possibly/probably higher in smoke than in vapor.

 

[kinabaloo]

ps: i wonder if phosphates in washing powders could account for the increase in skin cancers ...

~~~

many think 'cancer research' is a scam; and I tend to agree

 

[kinabaloo]

MSM links :

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/01/opinion/01proctor.html

 

[kinabaloo]

Besides the polonium-laden fertiliser, there would also be the 100+ atmospheric nuclear blasts in the Nevada desert. And now the radiatioactive particles being emitted from ...ushima too ...

 

[kinabaloo]

Passing by.

And I see all too clearly why I dont bother much here any more. " more weeks, and hardly any views and not a single comment on what is actually a very important topic - why smoking has been such a fatal attraction. AS ever, we've been lied to about reality and truth hidden. Meanwhile new wars start and people just think about where to get a coupn for the latest LR super atty thingy.

Will drop by now and then on the off-chance anyone has a thought in their head ...

Plenty of Polonium in the air too now from the Japanese meltdowns and the weapons programs therein - hence all the secrecy. So many will have given up smoking to die of polonium radiation anyway, and all down to the greed of those who enslave us.

 

[Ghost Song]

lol...this is my first time seeing this thread. pretty intriguing read. i found it strange that you were having a conversation with yourself until i got to your last post and realized that few people had even seen this thread or even commented. thanks for sharing the info, i'm glad i stopped smoking. can you explain the relationship between acrolein and vg, assuming it is the vg found in eliquid you are talking about?

 

[TomCatt]

lol...this is my first time seeing this thread. pretty intriguing read. i found it strange that you were having a conversation with yourself until i got to your last post and realized that few people had even seen this thread or even commented. thanks for sharing the info, i'm glad i stopped smoking. can you explain the relationship between acrolein and vg, assuming it is the vg found in eliquid you are talking about?

Ghost,
Acrolein can be produced from VG (vegetable glycerin, glycerol) by heating. However, I just did a Google of "acrolein glycerol" and got these hits, which seem to indicate that production of acrolein from VG is at least very inefficient without a catalyst present:

"
Acrolein - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Acrolein is used in the preparation of polyester resin, polyurethane, propylene glycol, acrylic acid, acrylonitrile, and glycerol. Acrolein tends to ...
Synthesis - Uses - Health risks - Acrolein test
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrolein - Cached - Similar
►
Formation of Acrolein from Glycerol by B. Welchii
by FB Humphreys - 1924 - Cited by 9 - Related articles
The production of acrolein in any appreciable quantity from glycerol ... of acrolein in glycerol medium. He has named it B. amaracrylus from ...
JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie - Similar

Sustainable production of acrolein: Gas-phase dehydration of ...
by SH Chai - 2007 - Cited by 37 - Related articles
Gas-phase dehydration of glycerol to produce acrolein was investigated at 315 °C over Nb2O5 catalysts calcined in the temperature range of 350–700 °C. The ...
linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0021951707002448 - Similar
[PDF]

ACROLEIN FORMATION FROM GLYCEROL IN SUPERCRITICAL WATER. Glycerol ...
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
by M Watanabe - Cited by 1 - Related articles
optimum condition for acrolein synthesis from glycerol. ... Glycerol was obtained from Aldrich. Acrolein and sulfuric acid (H2SO4, 1 mol/dm3 aqueous ...
www.isasf.net/fileadmin/files/Docs/Colmar/Paper/Rw7.pdf

ACROLEIN
Acrolein can be prepared by heating glycerol with magnesium or alkali sulfates under various conditions,3 by heating glycerol with a "bleaching earth" ...
www.orgsyn.org/orgsyn/orgsyn/prepContent.asp?prep... - Cached - Similar
"

 

[TomCatt]

Kin,
I too just discovered your thread. I work in the chemical industry. Years ago when I was working with carbon-14 (radioactive carbon) tagged compounds, I was required to go through a 'radioactives training course'. Two of the things that I still remember from that course are the instructor saying that cigarettes are radioactive and that any pottery dishes with an orange glaze (I think he said and made in Mexico) were radioactive.
This was ~20 years ago and I quit analogs just over a month ago.

 

[Panhandler]

posting for reminder to return.

 

[LadyPhoenix]

So...if Tobacco is radioactive and the nicotine being used in juices for vaping is extracted from Tobacco, aren't we still exposing ourselves to radioactive material while vaping? Unless, of course, you are not adding nicotine.

 

[TomCatt]

So...if Tobacco is radioactive and the nicotine being used in juices for vaping is extracted from Tobacco, aren't we still exposing ourselves to radioactive material while vaping? Unless, of course, you are not adding nicotine.

The nicotine in tobacco isn't radioactive.

 

[kinabaloo]

As TomCatt said, the nicotine, or WTA, extracted from the tobacco would be almost entirely radioactive Polonium free.

Note to TomCatt on acrolein: large quantities are not required for something to be harmful - polonium is presnt is mnute quantities, but is deadly.

Though this was known for years before I posted this issue, it still amazes me that so little attention is given to this fact - that the harm from smoking is not particularly from the tobacco and its combustion (as most of us, not unreasonably, assumed) but from radioactive fertiliser.

Long ago, at the start of the ...ushima disaster, I said that this is a bigger disaster than Chernobyl, and despite dissent I think this is becoming clear. It will probably be 100s times worse in terms of total radioactivity relaesed and will affect Japan and the US/ Canada predominantly (but europe and beyond too). It may ultimately kill a billion people prematurely, given the colossal amount of material stored there.

Acrolein is real and nasty stuff, but it sure pales in significance next to radioactive polonium !

The significance of WTA is now seen by me at least as removing the Polonium. There is still a need to remove non-alkaloids so as not to gum up the atomiser but for harm reduction, removing the polonium is the key.

~~~

That I have lost interest in WTA is simply lack of interest - the method is already pretty good, but these days most people are just consumers and dont think beyond that role.

Lets stop looting other countries; vote Ron Paul (or Dennis Kuchinich or Cynthia McKinney; all the rest are best money can buy) ...

 

[kinabaloo]

lol...this is my first time seeing this thread. pretty intriguing read. i found it strange that you were having a conversation with yourself until i got to your last post and realized that few people had even seen this thread or even commented. thanks for sharing the info, i'm glad i stopped smoking. can you explain the relationship between acrolein and vg, assuming it is the vg found in eliquid you are talking about?

It is just a chemical fact : VG begins to decompose at a loer temperature than its bioling (vaporising) point.

It is NOT an insignificant fact in vaping, but is PROBABLY minor when compared to smoking; though primarily because smoking involves inhalation of radiocative particles, moreso than it involves more acrolein.

Wild guestimate, pretty much unchanged over the last few years, vaping is (somewhat hopefully) ~100x safer than smoking.

 

[jorvic]

Very interesting, I will have to look into this more...

 

[dankukindly]

So i guess i'm still a little confused. I understand that the Polonium is in the cigarettes, and thats for lack of a better word bad mmmkay lol... However the Acrolein coming from the VG does that mean we are still getting some of those carcinogens from the cigarettes? or does the amount of VG used reduce it to a more nominal level than that of a regular cigarette?

 

[uzer]

Tobacco has an affinity for radioactive rubidium which is found in trace quantity in soils. Don't know if the fertilizers add rubidium, but it is another radioactive element consumed by smoking tobacco.