Thread: US - Russia Visas

If Russians had wanted to kill him, they would have done it in another way. He could not be poisoned by polonium, because its halflife is 140 days.

Leaving aside the point that I made above about what "half-life" actually means, Marcus's statement is odd in another way: What on earth would the British gain by making up a lie that Po-210 was used to kill Litvinenko?

Granted, most of the world's Po-210 is produced in Russia, so if Po-210 was indeed the poison, that tends to raise suspicion of Russian involvement. But (1) the use of Po-210 doesn't PROVE Russian involvement; and (2) Russia would've ALREADY been a logical suspect, because (duh) Litvinenko was a defected Russian agent, and had also made inflammatory claims that Russia was blowing up its own apartment buildings in order to frame the Chechens, etc.

Thus, lying about Po-210 would seem to be unnecessary (because Russia would already be suspected no matter what), while at the same time being insufficient to conclusively blame Russia (because the Po-210 could have come from another source). So such a lie would accomplish nothing, in my opinion.

Moreover, Litvinenko's symptoms were generally consistent with thallium poisoning -- in fact, this was the original diagnosis, and polonium wasn't confirmed until his autopsy.

But if he had been indeed poisoned by thallium, making up a lie about Po-210 would create a totally unnecessary and expensive public health crisis for the UK -- because the sweat, urine, and feces of a polonium-poisoned individual are more hazardous to hospital workers and acquaintances than the bodily excretions of a thallium-poisoned person. Also, the general public is just scared as hell of radiation, even when there's not actually enough of it to harm them. (For example, the trace amounts of polonium-sweat that Litvinenko left on the seat of a London taxi would arguably pose very little danger to other people using the taxi, because your underwear and other clothes would block essentially all of the radiation!)

So, in short, if you falsely tell the public that a thallium-poisoned person was actually killed by polonium, you have to spend a lot more money on decontamination efforts. And for what gain? If the point was to frame Lugovoi for something he didn't do, planting a vial of thallium in his hotel room would have done the job nicely, without creating a public radiation scare!

Finally, making up a false story about polonium would require a relatively large conspiracy in which a lot of ordinary police and doctors and other investigators were paid off to lie about having detected polonium in Litvinenko's body, and in the blood of his wife and other associates like Mario Scaramella, and in various restaurants, taxis, and hotels that Litvinenko had visited, when they actually hadn't detected polonium anywhere or in anybody.

And if you're MI6 and you're trying to kill a former Russian intelligent agent while framing Russia for the murder, you naturally want to involve as few people as possible in your conspiracy!

So, while different people can disagree about who poisoned Litvinenko with Po-210, it seems to me literally unbelievable that polonium wasn't the substance used to poison him.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

... making up a lie about Po-210 would create a totally unnecessary and expensive public health crisis for the UK -- because the sweat, urine, and feces of a polonium-poisoned individual are more hazardous to hospital workers and acquaintances than the bodily excretions of a thallium-poisoned person.

not quite. Difference between external emitters and internal emitters. Externally, Po210 is very low risk. Alpha particles can't even go through a piece of paper. Not even through skin. Internally, very serious problem. Commercial antistatic brush contains Po210. Relatively safe. Antistatic Brushes

Originally Posted by Seraph

Externally, Po210 is very low risk. Alpha particles can't even go through a piece of paper. Not even through skin. Internally, very serious problem.

You're right, seraph -- Po-210 has to be inhaled or ingested in order to be dangerous. So in the case of hospital workers caring for Litvinenko and changing his bedsheets, etc., the main danger to them would NOT be from getting a little bit of his radioactive sweat or urine on their skin.

Rather, the risk would be that as the sweat/urine/feces dry out on Litvinenko's clothing and bedsheets, particles of polonium dust could become airborne and then be inhaled by a hospital worker. Although the risk from a one-time inhalation might be negligible because the Po210 dose was so tiny, if the same worker were visiting Litvinenko's bedside several times a day over a period of two or three weeks, then the total amount of inhaled Po210 could, in theory, become high enough to put the worker at statistically greater risk of lung cancer or leukemia. (Which could translate into expensive legal liability for the hospital.)

But as far as I know*, inhaling tiny amounts of airborne thallium dust from the dried bodily fluids of a thallium-poisoned patient wouldn't put hospital workers at significant risk. In other words, the "secondhand exposure" danger isn't as serious with thallium as it is with polonium.

Hence, my argument (mainly to Marcus) that it would have been utterly irrational for British agents to poison Litvinenko with Tl but then make up a total lie for the public that he'd been poisoned with Po210.

* Based on a lot of Googling -- I'm not a medical expert!

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

...the risk would be that as the sweat/urine/feces dry out on Litvinenko's clothing and bedsheets, particles of polonium dust could become airborne and then be inhaled by a hospital worker. Although the risk from a one-time inhalation might be negligible because the Po210 dose was so tiny, if the same worker were visiting Litvinenko's bedside several times a day over a period of two or three weeks, then the total amount of inhaled Po210 could, in theory, become high enough to put the worker at statistically greater risk of lung cancer or leukemia. (Which could translate into expensive legal liability for the hospital.)

For another reason entirely, I was looking up radiological medicine issues for several weeks, and found out that the radioactive heavy metals do not eliminate as readily as things like radioactive iodine. Iodine does eliminate as sweat, urine etc. Except for things like Tc99/Tc99m, the heavy metals do not behave so nicely, from the point of view of de-toxification. The heavy metal elimination profile starts off at about 1% the first day (feces/urine), and then rapidly falls off to less than ~0.1% vicinity. Large amounts are deposited on bone. This is on longer time lines. You can see from these kinds of things that the inhalation hazard is very low, to the point that you probably could not tell the difference from background. The fact that you can legally buy antistatic brushes containing Po210 should be telling you something.

Take a look at this radiation exposure chart. If you look at the lower right area of the chart, you can tell that a worker probably would not get an amount from Litvinenko that could be even linked to an increased chance of getting cancer. You have to do a little ball-park calculation, based on the low elimination rate, and dilution of dust, time in room,etc. If you assume that the fatal dose was ~8 Sv (or even much larger), then you can see that the ~1% elimination as feces/urine first day would allow only a tiny fraction of 1% as a possible dose. Estimate several hundred mL feces/urine, single digits volume mL drying would give thus 1% of 1% as a high estimate. Then to dust, and more dilution before a worker could inhale it. See where it is going? We would now be down below the mSv level, but more likely much less than that. A chest CT scan is list at 7 mSv. . http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/03/19/radiation-chart/
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Quote from IAEA "Po-210 can enter the body through eating and drinking of contaminated food, breathing contaminated air or through a wound. The biological half-time (the time for the level of Po-210 in the body to fall by half) is approximately 50 days. If taken into the body, Po-210 is subsequently excreted, mostly through faeces but some is excreted through urine and other pathways. People who come into contact with a person contaminated by Po-210 will not be at risk unless they ingest or inhale bodily fluids of the contaminated person. "
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Fac...lonium210.html
When they say ingest of inhale, they mean amounts that get into several percent. Not really very possible. The 50 day bio-half life is including the decay in the body also at the 138 day radioactive half life. The elimination rate slows down a lot after the first few days, resulting in incorporation in bones. This behaviour is similar for Plutonium radium, etc.
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You can see from these kinds of things that the inhalation hazard is very low, to the point that you probably could not tell the difference from background.

Well, a lot depends on whether I'm an epidemiologist, or a tort lawyer!