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What do Russian Alexander Litvinenko and cigarettes have in common?

Polonium 210. You may remember that Litvinenko died in London in 2006 after being deliberately poisoned with the known carcinogen. But did you know that some of the world’s largest tobacco companies researched the lethal radioactive substance polonium – present in cigarettes – over a 40-year period but never published the results?

A spokeswoman for British American Tobacco was quoted as saying “It’s fairly common knowledge polonium 210 is in cigarette smoke because it’s present in all such plant types, including strawberries.”

If it was common knowledge, why did they not disclose the results of their studies?

Additional Information from the Tobacco Control Reference Catalogue

Polonium in cigarette smoke and radiation exposure of lungs
Carvalho, Fernando P.; Oliveira, João M.
Czechoslovak Journal of Physics. 56(1): D697-D703. January 2006. [Article]
Radiation from tobacco smoke is one of the prime factors in causing lung cancer. In this study, researchers analyzed polonium concentrations in three common brands of cigarettes produced in Portugal. They found that the lungs of smokers contained significantly high levels of polonium, generating radiation doses far greater than the radiation exposures humans experience from natural sources.

Polonium-210 in cigarette tobacco
Khater, Ashraf E.M.; Al-Sewaidan, Hamed A. I.
International Journal of Low Radiation. 3(2/3): 224-233. 2006. [Article]
Cigarette smoking highly increases the internal intake of radionuclides (210Pb and 210Po) and their concentrations in the lung tissues. In this study, the concentration of polonium-210 was determined in the most frequently smoked cigarette brands available in the local market in Riyadh City, Saudi Arabia.

Waking a sleeping giant : the tobacco industry's response to the polonium-210 issue
Muggli, Monique E.; Ebbert, Jon O.; Robertson, Channing; Hurt, Richard D.
American Journal of Public Health. 98(9): 1643-1650. September 1, 2008. [Article]
This study analyzed internal tobacco industry documents and industry testimony and found that tobacco companies attempted, but ultimately choose against, removing PO-210 from their tobacco products. Research on the dangers of PO-210 was also stopped, as tobacco companies feared the data would ignite a firestorm of public concern.

210Po and 210Pb inhalation by cigarette smoking in Italy
Desideri, Donatella; Meli, Maria Assunta; Feduzi, Laura; Roselli, Carla
Health physics. 92(1): 58-63. January 2007. [Article]
Assessed the concentration of 210Po in 17 of the most frequently smoked cigarette brands in Italy. Results showed 210Po concentrations ranged from 6.84 to 17.49 mBq per cigarette.