Major Points
- November 2006, former KGB operative Alexander Litvinenko died in a London Hospital in what had all the hallmarks of a cold war-style assassination.
- A rare isotope called polonium 210
- People worldwide smoke almost six trillion cigarettes a year, and each one delivers a small amount of polonium 210 to the lungs.
- May not be the primary carcinogen in cigarette smoke, it may nonetheless cause thousands of deaths a year in the U.S. alone.
- The tobacco industry has known about polonium in cigarettes for nearly 50 years. Still they contain as much polonium today as they did half a century ago.
- June 2009, Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act into law were both signed into law by President Barack Obama.
- Forced industries to finally remove polonium from cigarette smoke would be one of the most straightforward ways to start making cigarettes less deadly.
Summary
Reflection