o lives in homes, works in offices or goes toschool, can be affected by the gas. If you live in a brick house, youcould be taking a serious risk if you don't get the radon level tested. A1990 National Safety Council report showed that radon causes, on theaverage, approximately 14,000 deaths a year and can go as high as 30,000deaths a year.(ref. 6)After learning about what radon gas can do to humans, shouldn't we be moreconcerned about what a naturally occurring substance can do rather thanworrying about what plutonium, and its rare contamination might do. Also,how many American citizens will actually have a chance to come in contactwith any plutonium isotope in their life time?As you can see, if we start to produce plutonium once again, we willbenefit greatly from its use. We can use it to help power nuclear reactorswhich can power our nation. It can also be recycled and used once againwhich is one thing fossil fuels cannot do. Nuclear electric propulsion andits use of plutonium will help power space exploration into the nextcentury and maybe even get us to Mars. Pu-238 is also helpful in poweringcardiac pacemakers, one of the great biomedical inventions of the1900's.With these constructive and productive uses, we shouldn't even debate onthe fact that we need plutonium for the future. You may think that byproducing plutonium, it will automatically go toward our nuclear weaponsprogram. With non-proliferation and testing banned, this, obviously, is nolonger an option. What about nuclear waste and radiation exposure? Well,unless an individual does not use safety precautions and other preventivemeasures when and if he handles the substance, he or she shouldn't expectanythingless of radiation poisoning and contamination. If you're still concerned about exposure to nuclear radiation, you're infor a big surprise when you find out you can't avoid it. There is more ofa chance you will die fromradon gas than there is from plutonium.(ref. 6) Aft...
