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Why would anyone use Polonium 210 as a poisoning agent? ...I don't know that much about poisons, but I bet the people in this lob have whole arsenal of "stealt
by nnq 13y ago
Why would anyone use Polonium 210 as a poisoning agent?
...I don't know that much about poisons, but I bet the people in this lob have whole arsenal of "stealth" poisons that could much more easily go unnoticed. And if you want to make it obvious, why not go for something even more obvious or simply a bullet?
It seems more like an "artist's signature" thing and it would be interesting to know who this "artist" is!
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Symmetry 13y agoWell, it takes remarkably little to kill someone, and unlike other poisons in that range it won't be destroyed by cooking. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_lethal_dose http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_lethal_dose
- nnq 13y agoWhy would the "won't be destroyed by cooking" part matter that much? We all consume a lot of uncooked produce everyday...
- wonderzombie 13y agoAt a guess, flexibility. If the opportunity presents itself, your assassination attempt won't be foiled by the target's/victim's decision to have a casserole instead.
- commandar 13y agoIt's another attack vector. The working theory is that Alexander Litvenko was poisoned with tea laced with polonium.
- rcthompson 13y agoTheoretically, if you were paranoid, you could consume only thoroughly-cooked foods as a defense against poisoning. So a low-dose poison that survives cooking defeats that defense.
- pantalaimon 13y agoThat's indeed remarkably little. You'd need about 1-2µg of it to kill someone, that's 1/100th of an active dose of LSD.
- Avitas 13y agoAfter perusing that list, I have strange desire to get Botox injections.
- IvarTJ 13y agoIt has been used successfully before. Just ask Alexander Litvinenko.
- Xylakant 13y agoArafat died in november 2004, Litvinenko in november 2006.
- gh02t 13y agoIt is difficult to detect unless you know to look for it. The symptoms are pretty generic and easily misdiagnosed since few doctors would be expecting it. Still not that great of an idea in such a high profile case, but it has the potential to be a potent weapon for an assassin that has access to it.
- sentenza 13y agoIn the Litvinenko case it was probably used as a signature, since there are very few entities on this planet that can actually obtain a sufficient amount of the isotope. The assumption is that the assassin wanted everybody to know who gave the order. That same reason also makes me somewhat sceptic in this case, but who knows. Hopefully, time will tell.
- marshray 13y agoAlso, the Ukrainians are surely experts by now on the effects of radioisotopes on humans :-(
- varjag 13y agoWe experience a bit of survivor bias here. With Arafat, the assassin almost got away with it unnoticed. There could be other cases of Polonium use as well which were never reported, it's remarkably tough poison to detect.
- Xylakant 13y ago> Why would anyone use Polonium 210 as a poisoning agent? It's a very rare agent that only very few assassins have access to, so most routine poison searches would not pick it up. Especially since the symptoms are basically nondescript. In addition to that polonium was pretty much unknown as a poison when Arafat was killed - the high profile Litvinenko killing was after Arafats death. The lethal dose is extremely low and even if it is detected, there's no antidote. That's a pretty good stealth poison in my book.
- wavefunction 13y agoAnd it has a very short half-life compared to many other radioactive agents.
- moioci 13y agoWikipedia says chelation with mercaptopurine has been effective in mice. Not sure how quickly it would have to be given, though. (Wikipedia says biological half-life is 30 - 50 days.)
- Xylakant 13y agoProbably before the onset of the worst symptoms. Basically the cause of death is massive radiation poisoning and all the symptoms are radiation sickness symptoms, i.e. tissue damage.
- gngeal 13y agoI fancied the notion of stealth poisoning by heavy water. Who'd bother to actually check for it?
- gahahaha 13y agoSeems very impractical. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2135/is-heavy-water-dangerous http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2135/is-heavy-water...
- 13y ago
- eli 13y agoI linked this in a thread below, but I think it's worth reposting here: https://www.readmatter.com/a/bad-blood-the-life-and-death-of-alexander-litvinenko/ https://www.readmatter.com/a/bad-blood-the-life-and-death-of... It's a very interesting article about what happened to Litvinenko and how polonium poisoning actually works. You're right that it's a curious choice in some respects. In the Litvinenko case, police were literally able to retrace the steps of the assassins by following the radiation. Its short half-life also suggests that whoever was behind it had access to a nuclear reactor.