Toxic errors

In reply to my letter criticising politically useful anti-nuclear scare stories, particularly the Dalgety Bay one, Dr George Shering asserts (Letters, 3 April) – not entirely relevantly since nobody claims it is present at Dalgety – that “Plutonium is the most poisonous substance known to man”.

In fact that honour lies with Botulinum toxin. Plutonium is far down the list. This claim was originally made by Ralph Nader. It was disputed by, among others, Professor Bernard Cohen, who offered to eat as much plutonium as Mr Nader would of caffeine. Nader refused.

Despite this the claim has been widely promoted by the “environmentally aware” and remains a mainstay of the anti-nuclear movement. Dr Shering’s remark about the added toxicity of particles over widespread radiation is also wrong.

The theory in which a particle of plutonium dust radiates a localised spot of lung tissue has been tested and found false. Such particles are more mobile than originally thought and toxicity is not measurably increased due to particulate form.

There were about 25 workers from Los Alamos National Laboratory who inhaled a considerable amount of plutonium dust during 1940s. According to the hot-particle theory, each of them has a 99.5 per cent chance of being dead from lung cancer by now, but there has not been a single lung cancer among them.

Also the difference between a particle and a clump is, to some extent, merely a matter of definition. Sepa’s experts have said that, at least in some instances, sizeable “particles” could not be further desegregated, proving that there was no specific point source with the “particle”.

With the man-made (well mined from natural pitchblende) radium being no more than 0.26 of a gram, when natural radium in the area is 1 gram and other radioactives nine tons, it is virtually inevitable that the large majority of “particles” will be natural concentrations.

The fact that, when I asked under the Freedom of Information Act, Sepa has refused to say exactly where and when its alleged chemical testing of particles, proving them to be paint, took place does not inspire confidence. He also mentions Fukushima. Though the tsunami killed 21,000 not a single person was killed, or even injured, by radiation.

Anybody may confirm that the number of news stories about the non-lethal “radiation catastrophe”is considerably more than of the catastrophe that killed so many.

Nonetheless, I thank Dr Shering for being more willing to openly debate the subject than Sepa. Readers may judge for themselves whether he has made my assertion that the anti-nuclear movement is based on hysteria rather than evidence less or more credible.

Neil Craig

Woodlands Road

Glasgow