Former Spy Poisoned By Radiation In UK 432
An anonymous reader writes "BBC new is reporting the death of the ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko with a major dose of radioactive polonium-210. But nobody knows how it got there. Suspicions have fallen upon the Russian security services (who deny involvement). The task of the pathologists now is to unpick what really killed him and how it was administered. Quite what techniques they will use to solve this puzzle is unclear." From the article: "A post-mortem examination on Mr Litvinenko has not been held yet. The delay is believed to be over concerns about the health implications for those present at the examination. But Roger Cox from the HPA said a large quantity of alpha radiation emitted from polonium-210 had been detected in Mr Litvinenko's urine."
examination (Score:5, Informative)
The delay is believed to be over concerns about the health implications for those present at the examination.
If they're concerned, they're too ignorant about science to be qualified to do the exam. The rule of thumb is that alpas are stopped by air. Even if the guy's body fluids got on you, the alphas wouldn't get through your epidermis -- and I assume people doing autopsies are going to be wearing latex gloves, a mask, etc., since they don't want to get exposed to AIDS, etc.
Re:History repeating, sort of (Score:4, Informative)
Re:History repeating, sort of (Score:3, Informative)
Not sure if they would be able to put polonium into sushi without him realising? Not even sure what it is or how large a dose you'd need to kill someone!
Re:History repeating, sort of (Score:3, Informative)
Re:History repeating, sort of (Score:5, Informative)
Polonium (Score:5, Informative)
The maximum permissible body burden for ingested polonium is only 0.03 microcuries, which represents a particle weighing only 6.8 x 10-12 g. Weight for weight it is about 2.5 x 1011 times as toxic as hydrocyanic acid. The maximum allowable concentration for soluble polonium compounds in air is about 2 x 10-11 microcuries/cm3.
From: there [lanl.gov]
Soluble in acidic environment.
Apparently he was repeatedly invited by by an unkown russian person to drink tea....
A little sourness in tea with a few milligram of metal dissolved.
What an awful headline (Score:5, Informative)
The former implies that it was the radiation present in the UK that poisoned him; the latter makes it clear that he happened to be in the UK when he was poisoned by radiation.
Re:Polonium-210? What legitimate uses does it have (Score:3, Informative)
You can't save a patient that has this level of radiation poisoning. Impossible. Maybe he knew it, so he decided to play for the maximum political advantage. If people can fly aircraft into buildings, they can do this. Anyway it's just a creepy thought, probably not true at all - where would he get it? It will be interesting to see what the cause of the radiation is at the sushi bar. So long as it's not coming from the sewer
Re:History repeating, sort of (Score:3, Informative)
From the wikipedia the "safe" body load of Po210 is a massive 6.8*10^-12 grams.
I doubt that you would have to ingest very much of it to kill you.
Re:Devotion to one's cause (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, but a useful one [findarticles.com].
Litvinenko's statement before he died (Score:2, Informative)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6180262.stm [bbc.co.uk]
I'd believe it was upon Putin's order if... (Score:1, Informative)
I could of course believe that perhaps some secret service was involved... but believing that everything in Russia is done upon Putin's order is like saying that Bush is directly responsible for every law that is passed and every corporate deal in the US...
Anyways, Litvinenko is directly linked to Berezowski who is directly linked to the Chechen mafia (criminals aka terrorists)... so I wouldn't be too surprised if it's rather that group of people who are directly involved in his death. Btw, I still find it amazing that one of the Chechen terrorist leaders, who was directly responsible for recruiting and training British citizens to become terrorists on Chechen territory is still walking freely around London, especially in the post-London-tube-bombing situation. The guy's name is Zakaev and he is often shown on British TV
Re:History repeating, sort of (Score:3, Informative)
According to this [hypertextbook.com], a grain of sand can range from 0.30 mg to 13 mg. That's milligrams: 1/1,000ths of grams.
The quoted safe dose of Po-210 is 6.8 picograms, which is trillionths (1/1,000,000,000,000) of grams.
Without taking the differences of density between sand and Po-210 into account (quartz is 2.65, Po is over 9), that amount is in the order of one-billionth of a grain of sand.
Re:History repeating, sort of (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is that Po-210 is a potent alpha emitter [bnl.gov]. Since these guys are kicking off 5 MeV alphas, you will get a huge dose localized to a few cm from the parent nucleus. In the digestive system, you'll quickly tear things apart, killing the stem cells of the intestinal tract. It gets worse if absorbed into the bloodstream and the bone marrow.
While I'm not a toxicologist, I am a nuclear physicist; one of the foremost rules of radiation safety is to avoid ingesting alpha sources (or any other source, for God's sake) for precisely this reason. FWIW, alpha sources are one of the safer things to work with, for exactly the same reason that they're so bad for you if ingested: a few cm of shielding is sufficient to stop the penetrating alpha particles.
Re:examination (Score:2, Informative)
The high level of alpha decay in Po-210 is responsible for this evaporation (spallation) - alpha collisions with atoms near the surface can cause atoms to be knocked free into the air.
Ludicrously Complex Murder (Score:3, Informative)
However, killing him has probably backfired since more people know about the FSB bombing allegations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_b
Re:Reading the artcle...... (Score:3, Informative)
If this is a case of silencing him because he was about to disclose something really nasty, why not run over him with a truck or hit him with a falling brick or, even better, making him vanish without a trace? That's nothing a boat and a pair of cement shoes couldn't achieve. Although it's unclear if anyone was ever murdered with cement shoes, I could bet some money it's more frequent than with Polonium.
If I am ever to have information people would kill me to avoid spreading, I would spread it as fast and wide as I could, leaving my potential killers scrambling for damage control and lower my value as a target.
Of course, they might kill me later, for revenge, but later is better than sooner.
But remaining a high value target is something really dumb to do.
rarity (Score:2, Informative)
You need massive resources like a ton of uranium and a nuclear proccesing plant to get 100 micrograms of polonium. It also has a half-life of 138 days so you don't have too long to use it either.
I guess they were completely banking on the fact that no-one would think of looking for it in a post-mortem. Now the Brits found it, the Russians are completely in the sh1t.
A Letter from Litvinenko's Bedside (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Reading the artcle...... (Score:3, Informative)
But no, it's not totalitarian. The fact that I'm - a Russian, living in Russia - is able to write it, and noone will go after me for this, proves otherwise. Nah, it's not even anywhere near China yet. It's just your typical African-style third-world country with utterly corrupt but formally democratic government (and if you look at various freedom, life quality, wealth distribution & corruption indices, that's where Russia is today, somewhere in the company of Ghana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe). Noone cares what you say in general, until your words start to inconvenience those in power - for that they must at the very least be heard by someone who cares, so kitchen talk and random ranting on the Net (like this post) are not enough to make the government interested in you. But when you are a journalist or otherwise notable figure with access to mass media channels, and your words are heard and listened to... that's when they try to shut you up by any means necessary. Jail & assassination are the last resort measures in this game, though by no means unheard of.
Re:SPY? (Score:3, Informative)
Along with the other oligarchs, Berezovsky did some very unfortunate things. Many Russians say "he is Jewish" and leave it at that. However, the 'Siloviki' just seem to be replacing the old Oligarchs with new ones, in the process reducing any notion of private ownership. Before Putin, the view held by many in the Russian markets was that the Oligarchs had stolen their bit during privatisation, but overall they needed things to settle down for them to realise their investments. In such an environment, ordinary people could have investments, insurance policies, pension funds or whatever. The attack on Yukos and Khordokovsky was a lesson that Russia wasn't ready for transparency in business or government.
Actually it remains a lot cheaper but only if you go direct. Someone who is going to get a stand at CeBIT is generally to expensive, i.e., a large amount of cost is the payoff because your company is big enough to be 'noticed' and there is probably also a local company taking a hefty margin (yes I know some Russian/German companies). India is extremely expensive for an onshore/offshore project, the major vendors ask a blended rate of around 500 Eur/day for on-site and still 300 or so Eur a day for a senior person in India. However, despite the infrastructure issues in India, it is perceived to be a much lower risk by major customer, particularly in the area of financial systems.
People die all the time in India, from starvation or whatever. There is even terrorism as well. However, it is seen as being a much safer bet than Russia. High profile assassinations make people uncomfortable. So does the fact that the army/MVD can hang around Pulkovo airport and arbitrarily and illegally 'fine' foreigners with impunity.