sandersr@ecn-pc.UUCP (Robert C Sanders) (07/12/86)
[This is being forwarded from net.politics for the input from the net.sci newgroup ] From: mvs@meccts.UUCP (Michael V. Stein) In article <515@gargoyle.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes: >That depends on what type of waste you are talking about: spent >fuel, high-level waste (generated by reprocessing), transuranic waste >(from reprocessing and plutonium use in nuclear weapons fabrication), >low-level waste (from all sorts of industrial and "defense" >activities), uranium mill tailings, or naturally occurring or >accelerator-produced radioactive material. Each of these contains >different mixes of isotopes with various half-lives; e.g., >strontium-90 has a half-life of around 30 years, while that of >incredibly toxic plutonium is 24,000 years. Most low level wastes can be traced to hospitals. Somehow I wouldn't put nuclear medicine in the catagory of "defense." Aside from that, as you have shown the advantage of nuclear wastes over other forms of industrial wastes are two fold. First, the truely dangerous wastes form only a very small percentage of the total wastes. (While Strontium-90 is hazardous, used hospital gloves are not nearly so dangerous.) Secondly, the dangerous wastes are also the ones with a very short half-life. For this reason, they are only a serious health threat for a relatively short period of time. Heh. I notice you put the words "incredibly toxic" before the word plutonium. I am assuming then that you place those same words before all compounds that are more dangerous. This list would include radium, triarsenic oxide, mercury(?), botulin toxin etc etc. Or do you reserve that nice phrase "incredibly toxic" just for plutonium? -- Michael V. Stein Minnesota Educational Computing Corporation - Technical Services UUCP ihnp4!dicome!meccts!mvs -- Continuing Engineering Education Telecommunications Purdue University ...!ihnp4!pur-ee!pc-ecn!sandersr Let's make like a BSD process, and go FORK-OFF !! -- bob (and "make" a few children while we're at it ...)
sandersr@ecn-pc.UUCP (Robert C Sanders) (07/12/86)
[This is being forwarded from the net.politics newsgroup to get the input of the people in the net.sci newsgroup ] >From: csanders@amdcad.UUCP (Craig S. Anderson) In article <325@argus.UUCP> ken@argus.UUCP (Kenneth Ng) writes: >Caffeine is about 1/10 as toxic as plutonium. This is totally outrageous. Plutonium is THE most toxic substance known to man, according to the Book of World Records. Inhaling a few micrograms will cause lung cancer. It is a powerful alpha-emitter that causes severe cell damage if it gets inside your body. Plutonium must be handled in sealed gloved boxes, and workers must wear complicated breathing filters when working around the stuff. > >-- >Kenneth Ng: >Post office: NJIT - CCCC, Newark New Jersey 07102 >uucp(for a while) ihnp4!allegra!bellcore!argus!ken >soon uucp:ken@argus.cccc.njit.edu >bitnet(prefered) ken@njitcccc.bitnet >soon bitnet: ken@orion.cccc.njit.edu >(We are VERY slowly moving to RFC 920, kicking and screaming) > >Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical, that is >the only planet in the federation that can make that claim" > >Romulan: "Permit me the glory of the kill" -- Craig Anderson Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (408) 749-3007 UUCP: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra,intelca}!amdcad!csanders #include <disclaimer.h> -- Continuing Engineering Education Telecommunications Purdue University ...!ihnp4!pur-ee!pc-ecn!sandersr Let's make like a BSD process, and go FORK-OFF !! -- bob (and "make" a few children while we're at it ...)
gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (07/14/86)
In article <561@ecn-pc.UUCP> sandersr@ecn-pc.UUCP (Robert C Sanders) writes: >... Plutonium is THE most toxic substance known >to man, according to the Book of World Records. Inhaling a few micrograms >will cause lung cancer. It is a powerful alpha-emitter that causes >severe cell damage if it gets inside your body. Plutonium must be handled >in sealed gloved boxes, and workers must wear complicated breathing filters >when working around the stuff. It is certainly true that one often hears essentially this claim. I don't know whether it's true or not, but I would be somewhat surprised if it were. I've been involved in the handling of radioactive materials many times, and it is true that one should take appropriate precautions, for ANY radioactive substance, not just plutonium. What is appropriate depends on the specific circumstances. I do know that one should not inhale radioactive dust, and that it is known that plutonium in the lungs is quite hazardous, especially for cigarette smokers. I haven't heard of evidence that plutonium is much worse than other emitters of similar radiation; I'd be interested in good references (the Book of World Records doesn't qualify as a scholarly source). Note that it doesn't take much material to totally block natural alpha radiation, whereas gamma (ionizing) radiation is harder to shield against. Most radiation workers I've met are very well versed in the hazards and know how to handle such substances. The same is probably true of workers in explosives and toxic chemicals. I'm sure that more care can and should be taken in the handling of all such materials, but scare tactics are totally out of place and may result in ill-advised measures being taken.
throopw@dg_rtp.UUCP (Wayne Throop) (07/15/86)
> sandersr@ecn-pc.UUCP (Robert C Sanders) >> ken@argus.UUCP (Kenneth Ng) >>Caffeine is about 1/10 as toxic as plutonium. > This is totally outrageous. Plutonium is THE most toxic substance known > to man, according to the Book of World Records. If the Book of World Records really claims this, it is wrong on this point. "Toxicity" is normally rated in terms of lethal dose, that is, a dose that has a fixed probability of killing in a fixed time-frame. There are biological compounds (such as the botulism toxin) that make plutonium seem about as toxic as tofuti. > Inhaling a few micrograms > will cause lung cancer. It is a powerful alpha-emitter that causes > severe cell damage if it gets inside your body. Plutonium must be handled > in sealed gloved boxes, and workers must wear complicated breathing filters > when working around the stuff. (Note that "will cause cancer" is a vast oversimplification. The cancer is by no means certain if the dose is a microgram as stated.) All true. But irrelevant. There are more powerful alpha-emitters than plutonium. And there are chemical and bio-hazards that make alpha-emitters seem beneficent. So the statement that plutonium is "the most toxic substance known to man" is *very* far wrong, unless the "man" in question is *very* ignorant. It's not the most toxic substance, it's not the most toxic isotope, it's probably not even the most toxic *element* for Bog's sake (consider californium, some isotopes of which are neutron emitters with very short half-lives). Dammit folks, this comes up over and over, and is refuted over and over. Once and for all, FACE FACTS: PLUTONIUM IS NOT EVEN *CLOSE* TO BEING THE MOST TOXIC SUBSTANCE. If you are worried about plutonium gettin' ya, you're worried about the *WRONG* *THINGS*. You've been sucked in by an incorrect popular mythology. Worry about drunk drivers, about chemical spills, about scrubbing smokestacks (and what to do with the toxic chemical residue that *scrubbing* produces), and a million other things before worrying about plutonium. On the other hand, I doubt that plutonium is only 1/10 as toxic as caffine either. The points I've made here I base on several articles in the popular scientific press (Scientific American, Science News) of about a year ago, reporting on public perception of toxicity, contrasted with the reality of the situation. In these articles, plutonium was found (along with one of the dioxins) about half-way down a list of toxic substances ordered by toxicity. -- Wayne Throop <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw
ken@argus.UUCP (Kenneth Ng) (07/22/86)
In article <439@dg_rtp.UUCP>, throopw@dg_rtp.UUCP (Wayne Throop) writes: > > On the other hand, I doubt that plutonium is only 1/10 as toxic as > caffine either. The points I've made here I base on several articles in > the popular scientific press (Scientific American, Science News) of > about a year ago, reporting on public perception of toxicity, contrasted > with the reality of the situation. In these articles, plutonium was > found (along with one of the dioxins) about half-way down a list of > toxic substances ordered by toxicity. I thought I posted a correction, caffeine is 1/7 as toxic as plutonium, using LD50 values. LD50 is the amount needed to kill half of the test sample. > Wayne Throop <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw -- Kenneth Ng: Post office: NJIT - CCCC, Newark New Jersey 07102 uucp(for a while) ihnp4!allegra!bellcore!argus!ken soon uucp:ken@argus.cccc.njit.edu bitnet(prefered) ken@njitcccc.bitnet or ken@orion.bitnet soon bitnet: ken@orion.cccc.njit.edu (We are VERY slowly moving to RFC 920, kicking and screaming) Spock: "Captain, you are an excellent Starship Captain, but as a taxi driver, you need much to be desired." Savaak: "He's so....human" Spock: "No one is perfect"
csanders@amdcad.UUCP (Craig S. Anderson) (07/23/86)
In article <372@argus.UUCP> ken@argus.UUCP (Kenneth Ng) writes: >In article <439@dg_rtp.UUCP>, throopw@dg_rtp.UUCP (Wayne Throop) writes: >> >> On the other hand, I doubt that plutonium is only 1/10 as toxic as >> caffine either. The points I've made here I base on several articles in >> the popular scientific press (Scientific American, Science News) of >> about a year ago, reporting on public perception of toxicity, contrasted >> with the reality of the situation. In these articles, plutonium was >> found (along with one of the dioxins) about half-way down a list of >> toxic substances ordered by toxicity. > >I thought I posted a correction, caffeine is 1/7 as toxic as >plutonium, using LD50 values. LD50 is the amount needed to kill >half of the test sample. > What exactly is the definition of LD50? Does a person who dies 2 years later count as being killed by the substance? According to the excerpt I posted earlier, it takes .75 micrograms of plutonium maintained in the body to cause "significant body injury" (Rare Metals Handbook). Even if it takes 100 times the dose to progress from "significant body injury" to eventually killing half the people in the sample, one is still a long way from saying that caffeine is 1/7 as toxic as plutonium, unless LD50 means "dead within a certain period of time". It might take a gram of plutonium to kill a person within a week or so, but according to my source a far smaller amount will cause much damage over a long period of time. I agree with those people who say this is getting silly. Some overly concerned people think that they will definitely get cancer because they live near a nuclear power plant. On the other end of the spectrum, some people think it is fine to dump radioactive waste in the ocean in ordinary steel drums, or to dump old nuclear powered subs in the Pacific. I think there is a middle ground in there somewhere. > >-- >Kenneth Ng: -- Craig Anderson Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (408) 749-3007 UUCP: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra,intelca}!amdcad!csanders #include <disclaimer.h>
brian@sequent.UUCP (Brian Godfrey) (07/31/86)
>Dammit folks, this comes up over and over, and is refuted over and >over. Once and for all, FACE FACTS: > > PLUTONIUM IS NOT EVEN *CLOSE* TO BEING THE MOST TOXIC SUBSTANCE. Who cares if it is the *most* toxic? Can plutonium kill me? Yes. Hey, folks, dead is dead. Just how much more dead can one toxin make you than another? --Brian
throopw@dg_rtp.UUCP (Wayne Throop) (08/04/86)
> brian@sequent.UUCP (Brian Godfrey) > Who cares if it is the *most* toxic? Can plutonium kill me? Yes. Hey, > folks, dead is dead. Just how much more dead can one toxin make you than > another? What, you are saying that all toxins are equally fatal, and thus by implication, equally dangerous? So you are saying that alcohol is just as dangerous as plutonium? After all: "Who cares [which is more] toxic? Can [alcohol] kill me? Yes. Hey, folks, dead is dead. Just how much more dead can one toxin make you than another?" Your implicit assertion that relative toxicity is irrelevant to ascessing the dangers of potentially introducing toxic substances into the environment is, to put it mildly, somewhat silly. In case the subtle point I'm making gets past you, I'm saying that it's not "how much more dead" you are, but how much less toxin it takes to *make* you dead. So, to directly answer your question "who cares", anybody who is potentially exposed to some fixed amount of the toxin cares. Understand now? -- "I'm here for your benefit, SCUMBAG! GOT THAT?" --- Anthony Perkins in "Crimes of Passion" -- Wayne Throop <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw