He said it must have been a small dose. From what I read, it does make a big difference how much you ingest.
It turns out there’s a lot of polonium in tobacco, just from the air. For some reason, it accumulates in tobacco.
It can cause cancer later on. If you got a big enough dose, it will get in your liver, kidneys, lungs, bones.
There’s actually a chelating agent that they are having success with for removing the polonium from the body.
Here’s one article about it.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/27/health/polonium-arafat-explainer/
Arafat died of AIDS (per Israeli sources). Of course, lies are also out there.