[ RadSafe ] Polonium-210 poisoning

[franz.schoenhofer at chello.at]

Mark,

Yes, its parent nuclide is reactor produced and it's purified from it. Details can even be found on Google.

---- Mark Ramsay <mark.ramsay at ionactive.co.uk> schrieb:
> Do I not recall some gamma spec (yes gamma) was done which linked it to reactor based production (based on impurities) ?
> 
> Rgs
> 
> Mark
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On 11 Sep 2011, at 14:12, "Busby, Chris" <C.Busby at ulster.ac.uk> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > Yes. Interesting. Everyone blamed the Russians because it was said that only someone with access to a reactor could have put the poison together i.e. it was not a amateur job. But it is easy to separate Po210 from old radium tubes with nitric acid and baking soda; a kitchen job, though you'd have to be jolly careful. I think KGB would have far more sophisticated ways of killing someone.
> > Chris 
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: radsafe-bounces at agni.phys.iit.edu on behalf of Otto G. Raabe
> > Sent: Sat 9/10/2011 7:38 PM
> > To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
> > Subject: [ RadSafe ] Polonium-210 poisoning
> > 
> > September 10, 2011
> > 
> > At London's Millenium Hotel on November 1, 2006, Alexander 
> > Litvinenko, a Russian defector, was poisoned  with tea containing a 
> > large amount of polonium-210. He fell ill that very day and died 
> > after a long hospitalization on November 23. He told investigators 
> > that he had met with two former KGB agents early on the day he fell ill.
> > 
> > That event reminded me of an old black-and-white movie that I saw in 
> > 1950, and I recently rented it from Netflix. Well, the similarity of 
> > that story was surprising, especially since that story was written so 
> > early in the atomic age.
> > 
> > That 1950 movie was named "D.O.A", starring Edmond O'Brien.
> > 
> > While on vacation in San Francisco, an accountant named Frank Bigelow 
> > is purposely poisoned at a bar with a "slow-acting" poison which the 
> > doctors called a "luminous poison".  In the movie, the physicians 
> > detected the poison in the victim's blood using a blood sample mixed 
> > in a test tube with a scintillation solution and observed the tube 
> > glowing in the dark. This glowing tube is shown in the movie. The 
> > doctors reported extensive blood cell damage and told Bigelow that 
> > his condition was terminal. He had only a few days or weeks to live. 
> > They said they could have pumped his stomach if he had come in soon 
> > after he was poisoned, but he did not know that he was poisoned. The 
> > doctors said that there was no antidote for this "luminous" poison.
> > 
> > Well the story is about how Bigelow searches for the attacker, and it 
> > is quite interesting especially with all the old scenes in San Francisco.
> > 
> > Otto
> > 
> > 
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--
Franz Schoenhofer, PhD, MinRat
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A-1160 Vienna
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