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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.