Big Tobacco covered up radiation danger

William Birnbauer
September 7, 2008

TOBACCO companies have covered up for 40 years the fact that cigarette smoke contains a dangerous radioactive substance that exposes heavy smokers to the radiation equivalent of having 300 chest X-rays a year.

Internal company records reveal that cigarette manufacturers knew that tobacco contained polonium-210 but avoided drawing public attention to the fact for fear of "waking a sleeping giant".

Polonium-210 emits alpha radiation estimated to cause about 11,700 lung cancer deaths each year worldwide. Russian dissident and writer Alexander Litvinenko died after being poisoned with polonium-210 in 2006.

The polonium-210 in tobacco plants comes from high-phosphate fertilisers used on crops. The fertiliser is manufactured from rocks that contain radioisotopes such as polonium-210 (PO-210).

The radioactive substance is absorbed through the plant's roots and deposited on its leaves.

People who smoke one-and-a-half packets of cigarettes a day are exposed to as much radiation as they would receive from 300 chest X-rays a year, according to research.

New health warning labels such as "Cigarettes are a major source of radiation exposure" have been urged by the authors of a study published in this month's American Journal of Public Health.

"This wording would capitalise on public concern over radiation exposure and increase the impact of cigarette warning labels," the Mayo Clinic and Stanford University authors say.

Quit Victoria executive director Fiona Sharkie said Australian tobacco companies were not legally obliged to reveal the levels of chemicals contained in cigarettes.

This made it difficult to know exactly how damaging PO-210 was and meant it was impossible to know what effect it had on other poisons contained in cigarettes.

"It (PO-210) is obviously highly toxic and we applaud any efforts to publicise the dangers," she said.

"But the industry needs to be better regulated before we can support specific warnings."

Inhalation tests have shown that PO-210 is a cause of lung cancer in animals.

It has also been estimated to be responsible for 1% of all US lung cancers, or 1600 deaths a year.

The US authors analysed 1500 internal tobacco company documents, finding that tobacco companies conducted scientific studies on removing polonium-210 from cigarettes but were unable to do so.

"Documents show that the major transnational cigarette manufacturers managed the potential public relations problem of PO-210 in cigarettes by avoiding any public attention to the issue."

Philip Morris even decided not to publish internal research on polonium-210 which was more favourable to the tobacco industry than previous studies for fear of heightening public awareness of PO-210.

Urging his boss not to publish the results, one scientist wrote: "It has the potential of waking a sleeping giant."

Tobacco company lawyers played a key role in suppressing information about the research to protect the companies from litigation.

The journal authors, led by Monique Muggli, of the nicotine research program at the Mayo Clinic, say: "The internal debate, carried on for the better part of a decade, involved most cigarette manufacturers and pitted tobacco researchers against tobacco lawyers. The lawyers prevailed.

"Internal Philip Morris documents suggest that as long as the company could avoid having knowledge of biologically significant levels of PO-210 in its products, it could ignore PO-210 as a possible cause of lung cancer."

with REID SEXTON

http://www.theage.com.au/national/big-toba...80906-4b54.html

Passive Smokers Inhale Radioactive Particles

EXCERPTS FROM: Smoker alert: there's radiation in your cigarettes

Scripps Howard News Service, the Toledo Blade [05/17/00]

In the late 1960s and '70s, Dr. Dade W. Moeller, an expert on radiation
and professor at the Harvard University School of Public Health, urged
cigarette manufacturers to take what may seem like a strange step:

Get the radiation out of tobacco. Please develop a process to remove
radioactive material from cigarettes. It could protect the lungs of
cigarette smokers from enormous doses of radioactive material found in
tobacco. It could make cigarette smoking safer by reducing the risks of
lung cancer.

Radioactive material in cigarettes? Most people still aren't aware of the
nasty secret. Mention radiation exposure from cigarettes and they think
it's some heavy-handed trick concocted by the anti-cigarette lobby to
scare smokers and potential smokers.

Dr. Moeller and his Harvard associates, however, regard the radiation
hazard as both a serious health threat and a public health opportunity.

The threat, they say, is serious enough to add a new warning label to
those routinely put on cigarette packages. The radiation label would
caution:

``Surgeon General's Warning: Cigarettes are a Major Source of
Radiation Exposure.''

Given the public's morbid fear of radiation, knowledge about cigarette
radiation could boost the effectiveness of anti-smoking programs.

Here's the situation in a few lines. It has been documented over the last
35 years in reports in scientific journals and publications of the
congressionally chartered National Council on Radiation Protection and
Measurement.

In a 1964 report in ``Science,'' Harvard scientists announced discovery
that tobacco contains relatively high concentrations of a natural
radioactive material called polonium-210. It forms from a natural
radioactive gas, radon. Radon forms from another natural radioactive
material, uranium, found in small amounts in soil.

Those areas thus get a big jolt of radiation. Consider the yearly dose to
the bronchial epithelium in a person who smokes 1.5 packs of cigarettes
daily: It's equivalent to the radiation in about 1,500 chest x-ray
examinations, according to Dr. Moeller and his associates.

The annual radiation dose to a 1.5-pack per day smoker is more than 12
times higher than the safe limits set by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the
U.S. Department of Energy.

It is 1,500 times the dose that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
permits to the lungs of people who live just outside the perimeter fence
of a nuclear power plant.

Pity the non-smokers unfortunate enough to live, work or dine near
cigarette smokers. They also get a nice stiff dose of radiation from
inhaling ``second-hand'' smoke from smoldering cigarette butts and
exhaled smoke.

Smokers and nonsmokers exposed to second-hand smoke should know
about the radiation hazard from cigarettes. Cigarette companies should
heed Dr. Moeller's advice, and develop ways of removing polonium-210
from tobacco.

Maybe they should list radiation content on the package, right along
with nicotine and tar levels, so smokers can be more informed
consumers and pick a low-radiation brand.

http://www.no-smoking.org/may00/05-19-00-1.html

Okay first off I would rather take my chances from a radiation point of view with a bunch of cigarettes a year than 300 chest x-rays a year. Who the hell would want that? I cannot see it personally. I know cigarettes are bad and have something like 2000 chemicals in total within but I think theres something more devious going on. I believe its tied into the Chemtrail program of the ONI,DOD and NATO. We know theres a big depopulation push by the Club of Rome, this is why we have 1 in 3 dying of Cancer. So when the establishment start to ban this and that, I get suspicious of their motives. Either the cigarettes/tobacco is stopping what they intend with the chemtrails or its aiding their agenda too quickly with the chemtrails. All this banning nonsense started when the chemtrails got going properly across the globe. Make the connections. I did hear ages ago that Cigarettes pulled the metals from the nervous system? I can not confirm this happens but that could be one of the reasons. Remember the metals in the chemtrails? Something is going on big time here and I don't like it.

Aaah, ok, it all fits in now, this blatant attempt of a cover up. :ph43r:

And this from another forum:

:D

I think they put the polonium and chemicals in to counteract the more positive benefits of tobacco.

I grew my own a few years backs in England but it needs careful curing but now smoke American Spirit organic tobacco.

Tobacco has been associated with keeping negative spirits at bay and spiritual protection in native american folklore which could be another reason they dont like it.

Maybe the Joe Vialls thread on smoking could clear up for you this whole banning of smoking stuff.

This is supposed to be a "new alert"? Hahaha!

Hanna Kroeger brought out the radioactive polonium 210 info at least 20 years ago in her book "How to Counteract Environmental Poisons".

She had written those nearly-exact words William Birnbauer writes - where'd HE really get the info? I see that he only speaks of the "problem" but offers no "remedy" except to stop smoking, whereas Hanna Kroeger provides the information but also HELP not just information full of FEAR.

Does he offer herbal remedies or is he just fearmongering for that "unbeknownst to us" agenda?

Here is the Joe Vialls link and it is titled "Smoking helps protect against lung cancer"

http://z13.invisionfree.com/THE_UNHIVED_MI...?showtopic=5800

Just a side note...

I had posted that my dad took a prescription medicine that caused him to hallucinate.. but I only just remembered what he said he saw!

He saw a man outside the house smoking a cigarette.

My dad hates smoking so to him it was a "bad trip", but was the smoking man offering it to him to actually help him?

It has long been known that smoking cigarettes HELPS intestinal/stomach problems - my dad is fighting colorectal cancer.

The first time he hallucinated from prescrition meds, he saw his head at the foot of the bed.

Please tell me how these prescription meds are better for you than smoking tobacco - which people have been using for HEALING for hundreds? thousands? of years!?!?!

I don't think it's the tobacco itself that's bad...it's all the stuff they put in with it.

Still, I've never smoked and don't intend to.

Funny you should say that as quite a few who have tried datura say they halucinated they were smoking a cigarette when in fact they wern't.

https://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=47602