THE GOD OF HELL AND...

On the other hand, the same objection could be made to the link between lung cancer and cigarette smoking, at least in kind, though the amount of evidence in the case of smoking seems to be overwhelming. Perhaps it is fair to say that radiation hormesis remains to be proved only for humans¾with the odds heavily in favor of it.

Incidentally, the Los Alamos Labs have just published a further report on the group of 26 Manhattan-Project workers who absorbed large doses of plutonium, which they still carry in their lungs¾one of them has now carried more than double the maximum permissible lifetime body burden. A third man has now died¾of heart disease; one had previously died in an automobile crash, and one of a heart attack. None have as yet developed cancers, and the number of deaths is less than half of the expected number for men of that age. The sample is, of course, far too small to draw conclusions about hormesis, but it allows comparison with descriptions such as "a fuel toxic beyond human experience" (Wall St. J.), "one of the deadliest elements known" (Ralph Nader), and "an element rightly named after Pluto, the god of hell" (Elise Gerard).