R.I.P Alexander Litvinenko

[Amanda]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6178890.stm

What an awful way to die. Yet another example of all that's wrong with the world when there are people who will deliberately end the lives of others, in so many different ways.

[hr]

[s]"don't frown...you never know who might be falling in love with your smile..."[/s]

[Otis redding]

People die everyday

[hr]

"I am so bored with THE U.S.A." Strummer

[Freaker]

As a former spy, you'd think he'd know to watch his drink or food carefully. Shows yet again how cruel people can be, and what a messed up place this world can be when people take politics to the non-diplomatic stage...

[hr]

I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.

[Lid]

A man victim of his own success.

What goes around comes around.

Proverb soup.

[hr]

We are not drunks, we are multi-millionaires

[Dom]

So it looks like he may have been poisoned with Polonium-210. Can any scientists shed a light on how this could have been put into his food or drink, given how volatile and dangerous to handle it is? Would it not have harmed the health of the transporter?

On another note, I can't help thinking that he was failed by the docs. He was in hospital for several days - at first they thought he'd taken thallium but they weren't sure, and now he's dead and they expect to find out what did it in 24 hours. That's a lot of use. Is science really this slow? Medic please.

[Orcas]

I'm not a medic, but since they are now able to cut and do whatever they like with his body (assuming they are doing an autopsy) it's going to be quicker simply because they don't have to worry about harming him through their investigation.

[hr]

www.sufrasees.blogspot.co,

[Dom]

Very true, they can definitely find out the problem faster after death. But do blood tests, cat scans, urine samples, x-rays, operations , cameras and stuff really not give him a decent answer to what he was facing, even after several days?

[themushroomgod]

Dom,

Polonium has a boiling point of 962 celcius, and a melting point of 254 celcius (according to wikipedia), so couldn't really be described as volotile, at least as the elemental metal, rather than in a salt. The isotope 210 decays to lead as an alpha emmiter, so should be quite easy to handle, as alpha radiation can be blocked even by skin - it's only really dangerous by ingestion, and could be handled in complete safety even by simply putting it in a drinks can!

[hr]

Ooh! A Monkey!

[Dom]

Quoting themushroomgod from 17:40, 24th Nov 2006
Dom,

Polonium has a boiling point of 962 celcius, and a melting point of 254 celcius (according to wikipedia), so couldn't really be described as volotile, at least as the elemental metal, rather than in a salt. The isotope 210 decays to lead as an alpha emmiter, so should be quite easy to handle, as alpha radiation can be blocked even by skin - it's only really dangerous by ingestion, and could be handled in complete safety even by simply putting it in a drinks can!

[hr]

Ooh! A Monkey!

Thanks, that answers my first question. Are you in a postition to answer the other one?

[themushroomgod]

Sorry, but I'm not a medic. Wouldn't of thought it's the sort of thing they look for in a patient as a matter of course though.

[hr]

Ooh! A Monkey!

[David Bean]

I would hazard a guess that it's simply an extremely rare thing to be poisoned by, and the symptons he presented with were such that thalium was the most likely candidate. Bearing in mind that it was a good many days between his exposure to the poison and when he reported for treatment, the substance itself had probably largely broken down in his body, so it would have been difficult to get hold of a sample. By that time, he was being harmed and ultimately killed by the alpha radiation that had been absorbed into his body, which, from what I gather about radiation poisoning, is pretty much what happens: you can be exposed to the radiation on one day, but it'll take a while before the exposure results in symptons and ultimately death.

[hr]

Psalm 91:7