Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: hoey@aic.nrl.navy.mil (Dan Hoey)
Date: 26 Mar 1995 08:22:53 GMT
Subject: Plutonium debunked in the Atlantic

The new Atlantic Monthly has a good article on the myth of plutonium
as the "deadliest substance known to man".  The explanation seems
to be that in the 1940s and 1950s it was difficult to get people
concerned about industrial toxins.  Administrators in the nuclear
program exaggerated plutonium's toxicity in hopes of averting the
kind of carelessness that led watch-dial painters to lick their
radium-contaminated brushes.

The article also mentions a long-term study that monitors the health
of 26 workers who inhaled plutonium dust.  After 40 years, all but
three are still alive, a survival rate that is considerably better
than the population as a whole.  They call themselves the "UPPU" club
because traces of plutonium can still be measured in their urine.

There was also an article about the plutonium myth in the American
Scientist magazine last month, essentially debunking the fears that
plutonium smuggled out of the former Soviet Union could have poisoned
Munich's water supply.

Dan Hoey
Hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil