Polonium 210

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

December 1, 2006

Polonium 210
By PETER D. ZIMMERMAN
December 1, 2006; Page A12

LONDON -- The gruesome death of former KGB Lt. Col. Alexander Litvinenko will make history. Litvinenko is undoubtedly the first person murdered by the administration of an alpha-particle emitting radioactive isotope; that makes him the first known fatality resulting from a radiological assassination. The isotope, polonium 210, is largely unknown to the public. Litvinenko's death was as ghastly as it is possible to imagine. The radioactive material went to his gastrointestinal tract, where it rapidly killed the cells lining his gut. They sloughed off, causing nausea, severe internal bleeding and enormous pain. It was as if his internal organs received a severe sunburn, and peeled. If the dose was high enough, it was a death sentence, no matter what the doctors tried to do. At best they could have tried to make Litvinenko comfortable until the end.


Radiation poisoning was not detected immediately, even though the symptoms were at least consistent with that cause. At a moderately early stage, according to visitors to the bedside, radiation was suspected, and a simple monitor was passed over Litvinenko's body. It failed to register significant radiation. That is not surprising because of the perverse genius of the choice of poison. Alpha rays, emitted from certain very heavy atomic nuclei, are nothing but the nuclei of helium atoms. They pack a lot of energy, but because they are heavy and slow moving, they do not penetrate the way that gamma rays -- the most common radioactive emission -- do. Alphas are stopped in no more than a sheet of paper or a piece of aluminum foil, while gammas of the same energy will go through inches of lead. The alphas from the polonium 210 coursing through Litvinenko's body were stopped by his flesh, his skin and his clothing. There was nothing to be detected from outside.

(snip)

When the use of polonium to kill Litvinenko was revealed, most scientists said that preparing the poison required the resources of a government, or at least the use of a nuclear research reactor. The only economical way to make the material is in a reactor where a target is bombarded with neutrons; the resulting tiny amounts of polonium are then carefully separated in a radiochemistry laboratory. The basic techniques date back to Pierre and Marie Curie's 1898 discoveries. But it turns out that polonium 210 is a fairly common industrial isotope, one for which there are few substitutes. The radiation from a Po-210 source is used to ionize air, so that static electricity can be dissipated from textiles being pulled along rollers, from rapidly moving bands of paper, such as newsprint, and from photographic film. Alpha radiation makes it possible to brush off dust from film without having it immediately yanked back by a static charge.

Indeed, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not even require much in the way of licensing or paperwork to buy polonium sources smaller than two curies. Antistatic brushes, when fresh, can contain up to 10% of a lethal dose of Po-210; air ionizers for use in industry can contain up to the limit without coming under serious regulation, but larger and more useful sources are controlled. Such brushes, and somewhat larger ones, remain on the market.

(snip)

Mr. Zimmerman, a physicist, is professor of science and security at King's College London, and previously was chief scientist at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and science adviser at the State Department during the Clinton administration.

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116493485128037515.html (subscription)

[Jack Rabbit]

1. We need a special scientific name for Polonium 210

Putinian.

[thereismore]

3. Putinum.

[Jack Rabbit]

7. Putinium

That's what I was trying to get at.

Thank you.

[Bobbieo]

2. I watched my husband die from radiation poisoning

and it was the most excruciating death anyone could imagine. He was overdosed at the hospital and was literally burning from the inside out.

Litveninko's death brings back some horrible memories. One thing I did notice. His body did not turn black like my husband's did which was a blessing for his family

[question everything]

4. I am so sorry

We all know that doctors and hospitals make mistakes but for something like that to happen right before your eyes must have been an unbearable experience.

As explained in the article, his body did not turn black because the alpha radiation is so short that it stops at the first obstacle - in his case the gut walls.

I hope that the hospital made a thorough investigation to make sure that your horrible experience would not be repeated on other families.

[Jack Rabbit]

6. I am very sorry to hear about that

You are in my thoughts.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. It's not all that different from an earlier case

Zimmerman may say "Litvinenko is undoubtedly the first person murdered by the administration of an alpha-particle emitting radioactive isotope; that makes him the first known fatality resulting from a radiological assassination.", but the KGB used radioactive thallium a long time ago:

In September 1957, Dr Khokhlov attended a conference of anti-Soviet activists in Palmengarten in Frankfurt. On the closing day of the conference he gave a brief speech and then stepped out on to the terrace for some refreshment. Someone handed him a cup of coffee that he had not asked for.

The coffee tasted normal, but for some reason — he would later put it down to his subconscious — he drank only half the cup. Leaving the conference, he began to feel desperately tired. “A strange weight oppressed my stomach and heart,” he later wrote. He started to shiver uncontrollably, and then fainted.
...
He was transferred to the American military hospital, where six doctors worked around the clock to try to save his life, with blood transfusions and massive injections of steroids, cortisone and vitamins. One doctor diagnosed that he had been poisoned with thallium, but added: “Thallium is not known to cause the destruction of the bloodstream. There is something else here. . . we will find out what it is when we perform the autopsy.”
...
After six weeks, he was allowed to leave hospital, frail but alive. Months later, a leading toxicologist in New York obtained his records and concluded that he had been poisoned by radioactive thallium. The metal had been exposed to high doses of atomic radiation and dropped into his coffee. Once ingested, it burnt through his stomach lining and then entered the bloodstream. By the time the effects began to appear, the thallium had fully disintegrated. “The fabricators of the poison knew that an autopsy would yield no traces,” wrote Dr Khokhlov. Assassins from the 13th KGB Department had developed the perfect poison.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2480635,00.html

[eppur_se_muova]

8. You're quite right, there have been others, and other attempts. nt