Aucbvax.1868 fa.energy utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!OAF@MIT-MC Tue Jun 23 04:47:18 1981 energy digest Questions about Helen Caldicott's nuclear energy article, Iraqi reactor's intended uses TMI clipping servic - part 8 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Jun 1981 1440-PDT From: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE Subject: re: nuclear energy article To: energy at MIT-MC cc: ICL.REDFORD at SU-SCORE I've heard before the claim that one microgram of plutonium in your lungs will give you lung cancer and wondered about it. They seem to assume that the one particle is going to stay in the lungs for 20 years, but surely the lungs have some power to clean themselves. My glasses get dusty after just a few hours, so the lungs must collect tremendous amounts of the stuff. They must dispose of it somehow or they would be clogged in short order. Also, what does Helen Caldicott mean when she says that driving past a hot fuel rod at ninety miles an hour would kill you? Would it kill you immediately, in a couple of days, or in thirty years? After all it's very likely that you will die within a hundred years after crossing the street, but that doesn't mean much. I've seen a lot of this sort of sloppiness in reporting in science articles. ------- ------------------------------ RWG@MIT-MC 06/19/81 19:12:56 To: ENERGY at MIT-MC The following is repeated (without permission) from the July 81 Access to Energy. > > > STOP PRESS
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Return to the Usenet Oldnews Archive index ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.