Oct 282010
 

An old friend who is unnerved by the work I do recently asked “How do you know you are right?”  (when I challenge “authority”).   Well, I don’t know that I am right. 

It is because I have faith in you to correct me when I get really off-base, as I did with the polonium / plutonium in the email sent 10/26/2010, that I can nonetheless put forth the information.  My apologies for getting it wrong – – it is impossible to retrieve inaccurate words, and it undermines credibility generally.  Sorry.   I deleted the misinformation from the master copy of the email. 

I doubt you know how thankful I am for your contributions and concerns that the material put out is accurate.   I am fortunate to be able to work with you.  

Cheers,   /Sandra 

THE OFFENDING PARAGRAPH, FOLLOWED BY THE CORRECTIONS:

Plutonium is the most deadly substance on the planet – – remember the Soviet former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service that was killed by getting a little of it in his tea?   (Wikipedia)  “On 1 November 2006, Litvinenko suddenly fell ill and was hospitalized. He died three weeks later, becoming the first confirmed victim of lethal polonium-210-induced acute radiation syndrome.[1] According to doctors, “Litvinenko’s murder represents an ominous landmark: the beginning of an era of nuclear terrorism”.[2][3][4] (1)   MARK WRITES: 

Sandra – That incident involved a radioisotope of polonium, not plutonium.  Different stuff.  Plutonium would have been just as fatal, though, assuming it can be got into a tea-soluble form.  Though of course the really big danger with plutonium is that someone will use it to make nuclear weapons.

Polonium-210 is in the radioactive decay series that starts with uranium-238.  Hence it is found in uranium ores, and (because of its short half-life) nowhere else.  Though the stuff which killed Litvinenko may have been produced artificially by neutron-bombardment of bismuth-209.

= = = = == 

(2)   JOHN WRITES (in response to my statement, “There is good information in the following.”):

Sandra,

There was also bad information in your email. You’ve confused Po with Pu. I hope a correction is forthcoming in a future email.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium is not Plutonium, although it’s dangerous too, and much more natural.

= = = = = = = = = = =

(3)   CATHIE WRITES:

Dear Sandra

I was forwarded an email from you with information on Nuclear Waste etc.  It started with information on Plutonium and indicated that a Russian Spy was killed with plutonium.  It was, as you correctly quoted later in the paragraph, Polonium 210.  There is nothing that the pro-nukes like more than to catch us out on errors so I thought you might want to send out a correction on this. Cathie

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