[ RadSafe ] Arafat Po poisoning report

[John R Johnson]

Andy

My expertise is physics, not chemistry, but isn't Po-210 a progeny of
Rn-222. So if I wanted Po-210, I only need to save Rn-222 progeny. I t
would take a long time, but I don't think those "people" have much to do.

John


On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 9:52 AM, <edmond0033 at comcast.net> wrote:

> Dear Colleagues:
>
> Normally, after 10 half-lives there should be very little Po-210 left.
>  The amount of Pb-210 from the decay of Po-210 should also be negligible.
>  One can calculate the number of atoms of Pb-210 remaining.  Where would
> one get the Po-210?  I doubt if the Russians would supply it.  Separating
> it from Radium-226 would not be easy, especially for those doing it.
>
> Ed Baratta
>
> eddmond0033 at comcast.net
>
> -----Original Message----- From: KARAM, PHILIP
> Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 4:01 PM
> To: radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu
> Subject: [ RadSafe ] Arafat Po poisoning report
>
> For those who are interested, one of the labs analyzing Arafat's remains
> has concluded that he was poisoned with Po-210. A copy of their report can
> be downloaded from the Al Jazeera website (http://america.aljazeera.com/
> articles/2013/11/6/swiss-study-poloniumfoundinarafatasbones.html).
>
> I have not had a chance to review the report at all - it's about 100 pages
> in length and I just downloaded it. But I have to say that I'm dubious that
> Po-210 could be detected so long after it was administered - with a
> half-life of 138 days, it's undergone 24 half-lives of decay so the
> original activity has decayed by a factor of 2^24 (about 17 million) since
> mid-October, 2004.
>
> The report did mention a concentration of almost 1 Bq/gm in bone in one
> sample, which means that the concentration at death would have been over 17
> MBq/gm if I'm doing the calculations correctly. That seems like an awful
> lot of Po-210.
>
> In any event, it would be interesting if those of you who are better
> versed in laboratory procedures and such could comment on the plausibility
> of this part of the report being correct. It would also be interesting if
> those of you better-versed in radiation sickness could comment on the
> symptoms reported.
>
> Finally, I should say that, although I'm dubious, I'm also willing to
> change my mind! If the reported lab results are correct then that's the way
> it goes.
>
> All the best -
>
> Andy
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