British health ministry delays anti-smoking ad over polonium warning


LONDON (AFP) - Britain's health ministry delayed the airing of an "inappropriate" anti-smoking advertisement because it warned viewers that cigarettes contained the radioactive isotope that killed ex Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko.


The advert, part of the "Smoke is Poison" campaign, was due to have been aired for the first time Sunday evening, but officials at the Department of Health decided against it.

The series of radio and television commercials were designed to assert that most people know very little about what is actually in a cigarette, and claim that they contain a number of poisons.

awe so they admit that they don't know all the poisons contained in tobacco

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said the campaign had only been postponed and the decision "does not change the importance or influence of the campaign."

awe and so the health organization and the anti's are capitalizing on the fact that the mass population know very little about tobacco and what is contained within..to further their agenda and extorting money from the smokers

"There are a number of poisonous chemicals in cigarette smoke and we have an excellent history of tackling smoking.

"This advert is only being held in the short term."

Litvinenko fell ill on November 1 and died about three weeks later with large quantities of the radioactive substance polonium-210 found in his urine. His friends and relatives have blamed the Kremlin, a charge Russia has repeatedly denied

When I heard this whole thing about smoking and polonium 210, I tried to dig up some info on it, but it was alot of material and most of it was over my head. I did learn though, that, Polonium 210 is found alot of places, not just in...well, I'm not sure it it's in the bodies of smokers, in the tobacco leaf itself, or if its somehow created by the burning or what.

I believe from what I read that it is in the actual leaf, which I would mean that it's probably in a lot of leaves. I'll stand correction on that.

I figured NightLight might have something to tell us about it.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v216/n5113/abs/216352a0.html

Turns out it's a by-product of, guess what? Radon.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v216/n5113/abs/216352a0.html

Very interesting!

http://www.lenntech.com/Periodic-chart-elements/Po-en.htm

Just from reading these short articles, my mind is jumping to all kinds of hyperbolic conclusions.

http://www.radonseal.com/radon-facts.htm

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Have doctors caused our cancers and heart diseases?

http://www.radonseal.com/radon-facts.htm

Until 1920's, lung cancer was extremely rare. When a physician discovered a case, all interns were called because they would not see another case for years to come. The lung cancer epidemic in the second half of the century increased the lung cancer rate from 4 in 100,000 people to 72 in 100,000 in 1990. Coronary heart diseases also increased dramatically.

Dr. John Gofman, a prominent radiologist who helped to build the first nuclear bombs, concluded that medical irradiation has caused most of the cancers and coronary heart diseases in the twentieth century. He studied mortality rates from 1940 to 1990 of the entire U.S. population. He found that the mortality rates for cancers and coronary heart disease increase proportionally with the number of physicians per 100,000 people in each region, while all other diseases decrease. More physicians in a region means more x-rays to its population. In the case of coronary heart disease, the cause appears to be radiation-induced mutations in the coronary arteries.

Statistical analysis shows that medical irradiation has caused over a half of all cancers, two thirds of coronary heart diseases, and over 80% of breast cancers in the US. Dr. Gofman stresses that the radiation from each medical or dental x-ray can be reduced several-fold without sacrificing accuracy. All x-ray machines should be regularly calibrated and the doses measured. People should refuse unnecessary x-rays.

John W. Gofman, M.D., Ph.D. 1999: Radiation from Medical Procedures in the Pathogenesis of Cancer and Ischemic Heart Disease
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/CNR/RMP/intro.html

I want to be intellectually honest in pursuing my points, so forgive me if I occasionally play a half-assed devil's advocate.

My understanding regarding the anecdote about physician's calling interns in to the room to view a lung cancer is that it is attributed to the columnist George Will. I don't know that he cited a source from the time. Perhaps it exists, though.

http://www.lcolby.com/b-chap8.htm

In 1900, the mean average lifespan was 47 years. This statistic is even a bit misleading because it implies that everyone fell over dead in their forties. Infant and child mortality dragged the number down with some help from infectious diseases. Nonetheless, much fewer people would even live long enough to get lung cancer.

I've heard that in 1920, about 20% of the population ever even graduated from high school. Statistics were not collected the way they are today and people had very little idea what causes particular things. I don't know that any of us are necessarily as "smart" as Teddy Roosevelt or Herbert Hoover, but there seems little doubt that many of us have received a more enlightened education, whether formally or informally, without a corresponding likelihood for social or economic success. In short, it was a very different time.

If one were to get lung cancer in, say, 1920, it's likely that their death may have been attributed to tuberculosis or "consumption" as that was a common death causing illness of the time (second leading cause of death).

http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/articles/asthma/tb_3/

Actually, I just realized that my source for much of this information is Dr. Laurence Colby, a man who wrote a book asserting that smoking does not cause lung cancer. Dr. Colby points out similar problems with these ideas.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: WinstonSmith,