The Atomic Energy Commission's "health-physics" experts, who worry about the problem of radioactive wastes, have given close attention to mildly radioactive plutonium. They are not much afraid of short-lived, fiercely radiating isotopes, which can be isolated for a while until their activity has died away. Other isotopes with longer radiant lives are comparatively harmless, too. If they, are eaten or drunk by accident, the body excretes them quickly.
Plutonium is different. When it gets into the human body, it accumulates in the bones and spleen and stays there, gradually killing the tissue cells...
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