Impact of drought on US power supply

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 04 Oct 2012, 18:21

Wait a minute...

Apatite, or phosphate rock, is mined for the purpose of formulating the phosphate portion of most chemical fertilizers(4)

...which are also spread where food is grown, no? So, why doesn't that show up in cancer rates too?...erm, perhaps it does!

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 04 Oct 2012, 22:34

Tobacco use kills more than 5 million people per year

http://www.who.int/tobacco/health_priority/en/

polonium-210, which emits alpha radiation estimated to cause about 11,700 lung cancer deaths annually worldwide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium#C ... g_polonium

11700/5000000*100=0.234

So less than a quarter of one percent of smoking-related deaths are attributed to the polonium issue.

SleeperService · Post by **SleeperService** » 05 Oct 2012, 08:07

The current thinking is that everybody has the potential to develop cancer built in. In some people that potential is triggered while others living the same lifestyle don't develop it.

If it was as simple as one specific trigger then the tobacco companies would have eliminated it completely because the longer a smoker lives the more profit they make. Oh, and more people would take it up, and they'd save a fortune currently spent on PR.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 05 Oct 2012, 08:35

Putting aside any debate over the extent to which tobacco or one of the elements in its production causes cancer, what really boils my piss is the discrimination shown to tobacco users when it comes to treatment on the NHS. Tobacco tax contributes revenue to the exchequer to the tune of 10 billion pounds per year.

Yes, that's right.......10 billion

Meanwhile, the cost of extra health care to the NHS as a result of smoking is 2 billion pounds per years. Therefore the net gain to the exchequer is 8 billion per year. Given that the NHS costs about 100 billion per year, that means that smokers are single-handedly funding very nearly 10 percent of its running costs over and above the cost of extra treatment to themselves as a result of smoking.

In short, tobacco users pay for their extra cost on the health service many times over. Indeed, if it wasn't for tobacco users willingly and sacrificially laying down their lives for their fellow citizens, we wouldn't be able to afford a national health services.

Tobacco users should get preferential treatment on the NHS to reflect their excessive and selfless tax contributions to running it.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 05 Oct 2012, 09:17

biffvernon wrote:
UndercoverElephant wrote: In other words, most of the cancer deaths from tobacco smoking could be eliminated by using organic fertilisers rather than rock-derived fertilisers.
Nice story. Pity it isn't true.

You'll have to do better than that, Biff. It was a scientific claim. If you think it isn't true then you'll have to do better than just dismissing it out of hand.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 05 Oct 2012, 09:18

RenewableCandy wrote:Wait a minute...
Apatite, or phosphate rock, is mined for the purpose of formulating the phosphate portion of most chemical fertilizers(4)
...which are also spread where food is grown, no? So, why doesn't that show up in cancer rates too?...erm, perhaps it does!

The polonium taken in when smoking lodges itself in the lungs. If you eat it, maybe it just goes right through the system and out the other end.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 05 Oct 2012, 09:20

biffvernon wrote:
Tobacco use kills more than 5 million people per year
http://www.who.int/tobacco/health_priority/en/

polonium-210, which emits alpha radiation estimated to cause about 11,700 lung cancer deaths annually worldwide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium#C ... g_polonium

11700/5000000*100=0.234

So less than a quarter of one percent of smoking-related deaths are attributed to the polonium issue.

Tobaco

The presence of polonium in tobacco smoke has been known since the early 1960s.[93][94] Some of the world's biggest tobacco firms researched ways to remove the substance—to no avail—over a 40-year period but never published the results.[41]

Radioactive polonium-210 contained in phosphate fertilizers is absorbed by the roots of plants (such as tobacco) and stored in its tissues.[95][96][97] Tobacco plants fertilized by rock phosphates contain polonium-210, which emits alpha radiation estimated to cause about 11,700 lung cancer deaths annually worldwide.[41][98][99]

OK, I'll retreat to "the jury is out" on this one. Why hasn't the research been published?

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 05 Oct 2012, 09:24

SleeperService wrote:The current thinking is that everybody has the potential to develop cancer built in.

Every cell has that potential. Every cell in our bodies is descended from a line of cells that has been splitting for thousands of millions of years. As a result, several biochemical mechanisms and "safety features" are required in order to stop our normal cells from splitting. We get cancer when all of these mechanisms and safety features have failed.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 05 Oct 2012, 10:00

Polonium 210 can be fatal when eaten. Favourite method of poisening Russian disidents in London resteraunts. Also the reason Arrafat's bones are being dug up.

It is one of the most toxic substances known, being an alpha particle (helium nucleus) emitter, and easily absorbed into human tissue. Microgrammes can cause fatal radiation sickness, even smaller levels will presumably trigger cancer.

I didn't know it was a naturally occuring radionucleotide, it is a decay product of radium.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_o ... lonium-210

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 05 Oct 2012, 16:41

if it wasn't for tobacco users willingly and sacrificially laying down their lives for their fellow citizens,

NOT the nine o'clock news iirc

But still a fair point! Their earlier deaths also ease the Pensions Crisis.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 05 Oct 2012, 17:53

Dead people don't pay taxes so contribute nothing to the exchequer.

These money arguments are very silly.

JavaScriptDonkey · Post by **JavaScriptDonkey** » 05 Oct 2012, 19:47

Smokers contribute to today's Exchequer but draw out from tomorrow's NHS.

By the time your average smoker has puffed his way through 50 years of insecticide so as to develop emphysema the cost of his treatment is likely to exceed a large chunk of what he's paid in.

Smokers are supporting today's NHS.

But really, just quit.