I read about toxicity of uranium plutonium and polonium but I don’t understand how do we know it’s a chemical toxicity. In case of Litvinenko poisoning, Wikipedia says «victim of lethal polonium-210-induced acute radiation syndrome» so it was not toxicity of polonium that killed him, it was radioactivity. Can radioactive heavy metals kill cause harm in the same way lead, cadmium and other heavy metals poison you. Or most damage will be from radiation.
In: Physics
Every element can be radioactive. This includes traditionally toxic elements like lead or arsenic, but also elements we’d consider safe like oxygen or iodine. If it’s radioactive then its radioactivity makes it poisonous for that reason alone.
Similarly, the heavier metals which are radioactive can be more or less toxic. Certainly something like uranium is still a heavy metal like lead (though probably less hazardous than lead itself), but that’s not usually what’s going to be the first to kill you.
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