Obama giving go ahead for Georgia nuke

[Lissa]

Hi,
I agree with the rest of your statement, but this bit is just a common misconception. I can't seem to find a good table of relative toxicity, but I have found a number of articles like this. Plutonium is often touted as an extremely lethal material. The reason for this is that when it was being studied in Los Alamos during the Manhattan project, no one wanted to take the time to determine its toxicity, so it was arbitrarily assigned an extremely high value to keep people cautious. While that error has been officially corrected, it continues to be quoted today both because it makes a better story and it is better 'evidence' of the dangers of nuclear power/weapons. In fact, plutonium is actually safer than nicotine in terms of the quantity needed to kill someone.

The same holds true for many of the materials in radioactive waste. The most toxic materials known are almost all naturally occurring bio-toxins. You're safer around plutonium than you are around preserves put up by a beginner. Botulism is the "1000's of times more lethal".

--Pete

EDIT -- if the above link doesn't seem to work, try this and then click the link from there marked plutonium pollution.

Well, Plutonium is highly toxic, but not in it's pure form and not because of radioactivity. Plutonium Oxide is one of the most lethal poisons in existance. If you get even a small amount in your system, you will die, quite painfully I might add. A few mg of Plutonium Oxide is all that is needed to kill even the healthiest of individuals.