Heavy metals can't hurt you unless you ingest them. Proximity or handling doesn't hurt people. Radioactive materials, however, vomit particles everywhere in an

Heavy metals can't hurt you unless you ingest them. Proximity or handling doesn't hurt people. Radioactive materials, however, vomit particles everywhere in an untraceable way. Radioactivity cannot be removed from contaminated materials without transferring the radioactivity to something else. This is the key difference. Heavy metals can also be filtered from water and segregated from other substances, while radioactivity cannot.