polonium-210 kills Russian spy

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they said it was radioactive thalium before this - then quickly retracted that statement - now all you have to do is find out which security sevice likes killing with either or both products and voila you have a likely target at which to point a finger -

Or - if its that rare maybe he swallowed it and was going to transport it across borders - maybe selling it to terrorists or something ?
It must be really expensive if only 100grams a year are produced

Anna Politkovskaya the journalist who was killed by putin was also poisoned - she was posoned by thalium

"here alex, snort this - it will blow your head off" !

still he was a spy for cryin out loud, and freely admitted that he was at one time a government assassin - perhaps he just met his match! Its not like we should be bothered - he was hardly innocent himself ! maybe it was one of his victims families had him done up !

 

Any idea exactly how much Po210 was involved here? It has a relatively short half-life (~140 days), so it was either recently manufactured, or was originally a much larger amount, further limiting the possible suppliers.

Po210 is a VERY powerful alpha source, and available OTC here in the US for use in anti-static devices for removing dust from vinyl records and photographic films. Google on "staticmaster brush".

 

Pollonium is the rarest nuclear material on earth. 100 grams is produced in the world every year. it costs millions of dollars per gram I understand.

Now a former Russian Prime minister has been poisoned.

 

actually Astatine is the rarest element on Earth, there is between a few milligrams and a few grams depending on your source in the entire Earths crust. Im not sure how this was determined, I presume its some mixture of artificial production and looking for trace amounts in rocks.

 

They suspected Litvinenko was poisoned while he was with a friend in the Japanese restaurant, Itsu. And now the restaurant chain is expanding and growing in publicity (thriving) around this case. One just opened in NY. I'm still not quite sure why pollonium was used. Is there no element with around the same half life as pollonium? Less rare, less expensive.

 

Probably one reason is that Po210 is purely an alpha emitter, which makes it quite difficult to detect externally once ingested. Because the radiation won't penetrate the skin, the patient won't register on Geiger counters or other radiation detectors. The presence of Po210 in Litvinenko was only found because of an elevated helium level in his urine.

Being an alpha source, it would be reasonably safe for the assassin to handle as long as they didn't ingest any of it. Other powerful radioisotopes like Co60, Sr90, or Cs137 emit beta and/or gamma, and are hazardous to handle without precautions like lead shielding.

And aside from the radiation, polonium is also chemically toxic.

 

Thank you.