Likely the worst component of cigarettes is Polonium 210. This apparently comes ... | Hacker News

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		consumer451 on Sept 13, 2021 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: Drugs mimicking effects of cigarette smoke reduce ... Likely the worst component of cigarettes is Polonium 210. This apparently comes from phosphorus rich fertilizers. This is quite an interesting rabbit hole to jump into. https://www.google.com/search?q=pubmed+polonium+tobacco One of the more interesting ones: “Waking a Sleeping Giant: The Tobacco Industry’s Response to the Polonium-210 Issue“ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2509609/ My hot take: Tobacco seems like the most important product to consume from “organic” growers.

xyzzy21 on Sept 13, 2021 [–]

Yep.

And a lot of this is made worse by using mined phosphate fertilizers which are formed geologically such that transuranic daughter elements are concentrated into the phosphate. Tobacco itself also concentrates them.

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