Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Pittsburgh: Plutonium is constantly referred to by the news media as "the most toxic substance known to man." Ralph Nader has said that a pound of plutonium could cause 8 billion cancers, and former Senator Ribicoff has said that a single particle of plutonium inhaled into the lung can cause cancer. There is no scientific basis for any of these statements, as I have shown in a paper in the refereed scientific journal Health Physics (Vol. 32, pp. 359-379, 1977). In spite of the facts we have cited here, facts well known in the scientific community, the myth of Pu toxicity lingers on. The news media ignore us, and prefer to continue scaring the public at every opportunity.
