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When Ralph Nader called plutonium "the most toxic substance known to man", physicist Bernard Cohen challenged him thusly: "I'll eat as much pure plutonium as yo
by rosser 10y ago
When Ralph Nader called plutonium "the most toxic substance known to man", physicist Bernard Cohen challenged him thusly: "I'll eat as much pure plutonium as you do caffeine, and we'll see who dies first." (Paraphrased.) Nader declined.
Also, a man named Albert Stevens was injected with 131kBq of Pu. He died 20 years later of heart disease, having accumulated a lifetime dose of some 64 Sv.
It's not just the dose that makes the poison, it's the method of administration.
- XorNot 10y agoSadly it took me a while to realize how you could possibly make this challenge, but of course - it's all about bioavailability. Plutonium isn't actually all that dangerous radioactively (gamma emitters aren't very harmful internally).
- SomeStupidPoint 10y agoInteresting question: could you survive swallowing a 1mL plutonium ball? Because the LD50 of a 200lb/91kg human is about that amount of caffeine (20g).
- danieltillett 10y agoWhy we don't have any human data on the LD50 of plutonium, it is not likely to be any more toxic than uranium which has a LD50 of around 5g for the soluble salts. A 20g plutonium ball should be harmless if swallowed. 20g of caffeine on the other hand won't be pleasant.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]