Plutonium is less deadly than caffeine when ingested
Dr. Michio Kaku spreading FUD on live TV:
Plutonium is the most toxic chemical known to science. A speck of plutonium, a millionth of a gram, could cause, cancer if it’s ingested. So this has to be looked at very carefully. If there is a full abandonment of the reactor site, if they abandon ship, we could be in free fall.
Perhaps Doctor you should keep to string theory (a currently untestable field sadly) instead of venturing to verifiable claims over “most toxic chemical known to science”. This myth was most notably promoted by Ralph Nader, who upon being challenged by Bernard Cohen (currently Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Pittsburgh) to eat as much caffeine as he would eat plutonium oxide had backed out.
Professor Cohen has a lengthy treatise on the actual toxicity of plutonium, both when ingested and when inhaled. Latter is a more dangerous proposal but still very far from most dangerous material known to man. Similar position was taken by the EPA and International Commission on Radiological Protection among many others. The scientific data for this was based on 25 Manhattan project workers who had accidentally inhaled it, lung cancer rates downwind of the atomic test sites in Nevada and animal experiments conducted on mice. Latter where particularly difficult due to the high density of plutonium (nearly twice as that of lead) resulting in quick settling.
