Polonium 210 Found in Body of Former Russian Spy

Drudge Report.com ^ | November 24, 2006 | Drudge

[edpc]

Just a headline, as of 10AM.

[Caesar Soze]

Oligarkhs like Berezovskii. Accually Litvinenko is his minion.

Are you saying that the Russian state generally contracts with oligarchs to perform lethal covert actions, or that oligarchs now use KGB-style techniques in their own interests?

Also, can you recommend any good Russian news sites? I prefer English, but I do need to practice my Russian.

[Dead Dog]

They chose this stuff for maximum publicity. They want everyone to know they did it, and they want to be feared.

[RusIvan]

Are you saying that the Russian state generally contracts with oligarchs to perform lethal covert actions, or that oligarchs now use KGB-style techniques in their own interests?==

Second one. Many of former KGB officer works for oligarkh mafia now. Litvinenko himslef is just one example. He worked with Berezovskii likewise Politkovskaya.
There are much more.

[Libertina]

Russia is still Russia, isn't it? Hmm - food for thought.

[RusIvan]

Also, can you recommend any good Russian news sites? I prefer English, but I do need to practice my Russian.==

I'd like this one: http://www.libforum.ru/. It is not exactly news site but just the place where people discuss the current events in real time.

[vbmoneyspender]

Congrats. You win the Kook of the Day award.

[EBH]

I know.

Polonium-210, which emits alpha particles, is a natural contaminant of tobacco. For an individual smoking two packages of cigarettes a day, the radiation dose to bronchial epithelium from Po210 inhaled in cigarette smoke probably is at least seven times that from background sources, and in localized areas may be up to 1000 rem or more in 25 years...

Polonium is also present in chewing tobacco, benignly referred to as smokeless tobacco....

http://www.webspawner.com/users/radioactivethreat/index.html

[Vinnie]

IMHO Putin wanted it known that he was poisoned.
Putin had a radioactive substance used so it couldn't be missed.

What better way to silence critics than this warning.

[RusIvan]

What better way to silence critics than this warning.==

Who is that critic? Litvinenko?:) Just funny:). He is just the negligible value in the political sense. Putin has 80% approval rate. What that traitor-defector coul ddo to Putin with all his ctitisism? Putin is very practical man. He wouldn't bother to kill someone which has absolutely no danger to him.

As teh source of political provocation teh death of Litvinenko has teh good value indeed. His death is damaging for Putin more then his life. That is the truth.

[GraniteStateConservative]

I think RWA means he looks Russian and looks like a nasty SOB to get entangled with. I had exactly the same first impression as RWA, actually, when I ran across the pic earlier. He doesn't look like a CPA. He has hard features. You can easily imagine this guy being a cold-blooded agent of death for the state.

[cpdiii]

It would be very easy. Alpha particles are stopped by very small mass. A few inches of air. You could safely carry an Alpha Particle emitter in you pocket if it was encased in a small lead or steel container. A very small container. The best way to carry it as a poison would be for it to be embedded into a cube of sugar which one would carry in a sealed container. The sugar surrounding the polonium would also prevent contact contamination of the assassin We are talking incredible small amounts of the polonium required. The only thing the victim would taste is the sugar that his tea or coffee or meal was poisoned with.

Because of their charge and large mass, alpha particles are easily absorbed by materials and can travel only a few centimeters in air. They can be absorbed by tissue paper or the outer layers of human skin (about 40 micrometres, equivalent to a few cells deep) and so are not generally dangerous to life unless the source is ingested or inhaled. Because of this high mass and strong absorption, however, if alpha radiation does enter the body (most often because radioactive material has been inhaled or ingested), it is the most destructive form of ionizing radiation. It is the most strongly ionizing, and with large enough doses can cause any or all of the symptoms of radiation poisoning. It is estimated that chromosome damage from alpha particles is about 100 times greater than that caused by an equivalent amount of other radiation. The alpha emitter polonium-210 is suspected of playing a role in lung and bladder cancer related to tobacco smoking.

[Timedrifter]

You can basically forget trying to use logic to explain this case here on FR. Unfortunately a lot of members who are ready to accept any claim without evidence just as fast as the DUmmies and some of their wacko theories. Bush had Sen. Wellstone killed or Karl Rove controls the voting machines via Diebold, and of course the the biggest lie that Bush was behind or knew about 9-11. It's bad enough when they try and twist facts to fit an agenda, even worse when they make facts up out of thin air.

[Polybius]

Scroll down to 210 specifically, though -- says it's not dangerous to humans.

No, the 210 section of your link says no such thing. That section says:

"Since nearly all alpha radiation can be easily stopped by ordinary containers and upon hitting its surface releases its energy, polonium-210 has been used as a lightweight heat source to power thermoelectric cells in artificial satellites."

That is true and is Radiation Safety 101.

Alpha emitters do not emit gamma radiation that are electromagnetic waves that will go right through you. Alpha emitters emit large subatomic fragments consisting of 2 protons and 2 neutrons. In radiation terms, that is a huge particle that, like a medicine ball hitting a wooden wall, has a lot of energy transfered to the wall but poor penetration through the wall.

The good news is that such large particles can be stopped by a sheet of paper and even your layer of dead skin if you have an alpha particle radiation source next to you.

The bad news is that, if you ingest that alpha source and those atoms are absorbed into your body, each atom of an alpha particle is bombarding the cells in your body with heavy alpha particles.

A little dose and you can later get cancer.

A much higher dose and the DNA of your cellular structures is carpet bombed in the radiation health equivalent of B-52 strike.

How can alpha particles affect peoples health?.......... The health effects of alpha particles depend heavily upon how exposure takes place. External exposure (external to the body) is of far less concern than internal exposure, because alpha particles lack the energy to penetrate the outer dead layer of skin. .......... However, if alpha emitters have been inhaled, ingested (swallowed), or absorbed into the blood stream, sensitive living tissue can be exposed to alpha radiation. The resulting biological damage increases the risk of cancer; in particular, alpha radiation is known to cause lung cancer in humans when alpha emitters are inhaled.

As your own link says under the "Precautions" section:

Precautions Polonium is a highly radioactive and toxic element and is dangerous to handle. Even in milligram or microgram amounts, handling polonium-210 is very dangerous and requires special equipment used with strict procedures. Direct damage occurs from energy absorption into tissues from alpha particles.

So, the danger from alpha emitters comes from ingesting it.

If you handle Polonium 210 carelessly and get a tiny bit of it up your nose, you are in trouble. If it has been packaged in the KGB lab inside a cigarette that is inside a sealed cigarette pack, it is safe to carry around in your coat pocket until you break into the victim's house and switch one of his pack of Camel cigarettes for your pack of Camel cigarettes.

In short, it is the ideal radiological murder weapon that is deadly for the victim but safe for the killer to transport.

[labette]

"..I think it is just propaganda.

I think it's more likely carelessness / ignorance of people like me.

In the future I will resist using the term "Russian" when I should be using "Bolshevik", or "USSR."

[PAMadMax]

Yep, did the research on it.

[Atlantic Bridge]

Isn't Polonium 210 also used as initiator in nuclear warheads??! Neutrons need to be introduced to begin the chain reaction. One route to doing this is to use a highly reliable "modulated" neutron initiator, an initiator that releases neutrons only when triggered. The sophisticated neutron pulse tubes used in modern weapons are one possibility. The Manhattan Project developed a simple beryllium/polonium 210 initiator named "Abner" that brought the two materials together when struck by the projectile.

Therefore: Polonium 210 is probably nothing that is that available (or is it possibly used for other purposes?).

[RusIvan]

In the future I will resist using the term "Russian" when I should be using "Bolshevik", or "USSR."==

And you will be perfectly correct. But notice that someone may call you antisemite because teh word "bolshevick" is teh synonim for someone the word "jewsish commie" because between the first boshevicks were lot of jews. Later Stalin purged then out.

[b4its2late]

I guess the old Soviet Union still lives.....

[RusIvan]

Isn't Polonium 210 also used as initiator in nuclear warheads??! Neutrons need to be introduced to begin the chain reaction.==

Alpha particles and neutron are different entities. PO-210 is the source of alpha-particles with short period of decomposition means run out quickly. Hardly it is the part of weaponry.

[Maeve]

He may look like Vladimir Putin; we may call him Vladimir Putin, but his name is still Rasputin.