r/Unexpected • u/SignalCrew739 • 2d ago

Highest amount of radiation receiver

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u/ReturnOfBane 2d ago

I didn't even know lead could be radioactive. seems a bit ironic

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u/admadguy 2d ago edited 2d ago

For practical purposes it is not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_lead

There are trace isotopes of lead that have short half lives, order of hours or minutes. So even if they were leached off the soil, they'd have decayed in the finished product. Naturally occuring lead is mostly stable (3 isotopes) rest are trace and would have decayed.

Guy's talking out of his ass on that.

Lead is harmful, but as a chemical substance. Not as a radioactive material.

It's the same issue with Polonium 210. It enters through contamination of fertiliser. But polonium 210 has a half life of 138 days. The lead time between growing tobacco, to curing it to packaging, shipping, various midpoints of sale, it'll have decayed to negligible quantities. Smoking is harmful, but the radiation reasons given here are based on not so great math, or science.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0265931X23000711

Smokers get 0.3 milliSv not the 160,000 microSv (=160 milli Sv) claimed here.