I guess I missed where either Ralph Nader or Dr. Cohen specified which form of plutonium that they were referring to. Maybe "plutonium oxide" means the ceramic oxide or maybe not. Plutonium metal spontaneously oxidizes to PuO2 in an atmosphere of oxygen so it could be as simple as that.

Besides it was an off hand comment. The point was that the public doesn't care, all they know is plutonium is bad and will kill you.

Because people believe the media's saber rattling and they believe Ralph Nader who said that plutonium is “the most toxic substance known to mankind.” Even though it isn't. It's just too bad Ralph didn't accept Dr. Bernard Cohen's challenge to ingest equal amounts of caffeine to plutonium.

Basically it's a "Won't somebody please think of the children!" kind of response and the government loves to keep idiots happy.