[ RadSafe ] Addition to " Radiation Dose from Consumer Products"

[Franz Schönhofer]

Thomas,

Here some additions to the question of radiation dose and tobacco use:

First of all: My comment on "snuff" was based on the assumption that this
would be the word for the kind of tobacco adminstered to the nose -
"Schnupftabak" in German and "snus" in Swedish, though I found out, that the
word "snus" is apparently also used for the kind of "snuff" to be placed
between lip and gum or cheek. I thought that "snuff" was related to
"sniffing". Sorry, I cannot deny that my mother tongue is not English. This
latter kind would be extremely close to the mucosa in the mouth, so it is
not unlikely that some of the Po-210 (and Cs-137) might migrate by this way
into the body, but on the other hand, if dissolved - as Cs-137 will be -
most of it would be removed by spitting the saliva onto where so ever. 

Regarding the question of cancer: Of course lung cancer incidence will be
reduced if people changed from smoking to "smokeless tobacco", but it is
more than well known that mouth cancer substitutes for it. Have a look at
Google "snuff cancer". So the argument of decreasing lung cancer incidence
which the US tobacco industry put forward in favour of snuff to increase its
sale and compensate for cigarette sales losses are not valid. 

Finally for those interested something slightly off topic: The European
Union has banned the sale of all "snuff" in its member states since 1992.
The reason was not based on radiological grounds. Only Sweden is excepted,
because there the use of snuff is a tradition since more than 200 years and
about 18% of the Swedish population is said to use it. I doubt the last
number, because I have spent intermittendly over several years many months
in Sweden and I cannot remember that every fifth person would use smokeless
tobacco. Sweden is not allowed to export it to any EU country, but since
Norway has denied joining and is also "addicted" to snus a lot is exported
from Sweden into it. The biggest producer of it seems to bet he USA. 

Finally I apologize that in my message yesterday there where quite a few
typing errors.

Best regards,

Franz