Jan 04 2007
More On Litvinenko Polonium Trail
I decided to go back and review all the Health Protection Agency (HPA) notices that have come out since Litvinenko’s death and the realization he was poisoned by Polonium 210 to see what other details may have been hidden in these announcements. I was not dissappointed. In fact I suggest you read to the end, because the bits of new evidence culminate in an interesting statement regarding Litvinenko.
The more interesting announcements address questions and concerns from the public. The pattern of the trail is pretty clear: poisoning at any level (i.e., Polonium 210 in the body) seems to be at locations where the material was exposed to the air – not from bodily excretions. In fact, the risk from bodily excretions seems quite low. Here is one indication from HPA on why this is the case:
I live in the same household as someone who has a urine sample result showing elevated Polonium -210 levels. What is the risk to my health?
Normal social and household contact with people who may have elevated Polonium-210 levels in their urine are not a risk to others if good hygiene practices are followed. Only a tiny amount of Polonium -210 is excreted in body fluids and even then you would only be at risk of harm if you ingested it.
…
Does sweat contain Polonium-210 and if so how much?
Yes, but at very low levels similar to or less than other body fluids. It is typically 10 times less than those found in urine.
So first the Polonium needs to be sweated out in serious quantities, and then the material still needs to somehow be ingested or inhaled for poisoning. And in fact we see this in all the cases, with the possible exception of Marina Litvinenko. They all show very low contamination levels. But since Marina was dealing with a violently ill husband for a day or more it is not a surprising that she would be the exception.
Another indication to the form of the Po-210 that was trailed was this HPA statement:
How might I be affected by the Polonium-210 involved in this incident?
On the basis of the monitoring results received so far from a range of sites we believe that the risk to the general public of having been exposed to Po-210 is likely to be very low.
If Po-210 is present in the environment, it would need to enter people’s bodies to give them a radiation dose, again through ingestion, inhalation or through wound entry. Any people who may have inadvertently ingested or inhaled Po-210 will not present a hazard to other people nearby
Is it safe to travel on public transport in London?
On the basis of the monitoring results received so far from a number of locations in London as part of the on-going Po-210 investigations, the Health Protection Agency can reassure members of the public that the risk of having been exposed to Po-210 remains low. In the limited public areas where contamination has been found, this has been in small spots, where it is fixed and not easily transferred to hands or clothes.
So there was little dispersion in the public areas. My guess is other areas show a different pattern, and we can guess which places those may be. But it seem we are seeing a ‘spot’ of contamination in a form that doesn’t rub off easily onto hands or clothes. Was this because these spots were on the ground and simply not something easily made contact with? Or was this because the Po-210 was in a patch left over from a dried liquid salt solution? My guess is it may be a combination of the two. But the point is the heavy poisonings and contaminations seem to come in very unique circumstances – and basically behind closed doors.
Here is another indication of how limited the transmission of Po-210 is across the human organism when ingested or inhaled:
Can I continue to breastfeed?
The likelihood of significant transfer of Po-210 to the baby from the mother from exposure to contamination is very small and until proved otherwise normal breastfeeding should continue.
This tells me the Po-210 doesn’t disperse in the body as much as people thought it did. It seems to stay localized in the intestinal tract and the respiratory system – in the doses seen in the majority of people contaminated. It would seem Po-210 is not dangerous unless it is in a massive dose – which would again counter the assassination theory. Massive doses are expensive, dangerous to handle and transport, and increase the odds of detection.
Here is a fascinating snippet on how the authorities detected the Po-210 trail:
The two-person teams, drawn from experienced HPA radiation protection staff and specialist contractors, have checked public areas in buildings and vehicles at the invitation of the police or local authority.
Monitoring for alpha radiation is a thorough and methodical operation. This form of radiation is only detectable within a few centimetres of a given contaminated surface and the monitoring device typically has a sensitive area of only 10 by 10 cm. Monitoring teams therefore meticulously scan a room for hours at a time, slowly moving the monitor over the surface under examination and keeping it steady at a constant distance of about one cm above the surface.
The teams operate in pairs so that one member can monitor, and the other can check and record readings, and check their partner for any contamination.
Clearly this stuff is not easy to detect, except when in large quantities. The detection process gives a highly detailed topology of the Po-210 contamination and dosage, which allows for mapping a person’s activities – even within a room. What is intriguing in all of this is the Scaramella and Itsu Sushi contamination. The restuarant had hot spots, but not a single person from the restaurant was infected. And it seems the contamination on the planes was some of the least contaminated and very focused – again like from a drop of liquid (from the previous link on questions from the public):
The HPA has surveyed a number of planes on which people of interest to the police had travelled. Results of the monitoring carried out on these planes have been risk assessed – taking a precautionary approach to potential impact on public health.
Some remediation has been carried out for patches of activity found on planes, but levels have been appreciably lower than those found in many of the other venues. The levels of Po-210 found in the planes were not sufficient to have caused a public health concern for passengers, flight crew, cleaners or engineers that had been in these planes over recent weeks. If they had been exposed then the highest doses would only have been comparable to normal background radiation.
So these locations are not exposure sites, they are points on a trail. An exposure site seems to show dispersion and may be were the serious poisonings took place. Interestingly enough Berezovsky’s offices were also found to have sufficient levels of Po-210 to notify people in and around the offices to be checked out:
7 Down Street – Small areas of contamination were found and the HPA has recommended that these be remediated. Visitors and staff to the affected areas have been contacted and tested if necessary. In the public areas, no risk to public health has been found.
That makes it equal to the sushi restaurant and the hotels in terms of concern and dealing with innocent bystanders. I find it still surprising Berezovsky apparently refused testing for Po-210. We also have one more piece to this puzzle. It comes from some recent reporting regarding the latest low level poisonings announced. It concerns the number of people in the Pine Bar on Nov 1 and how many are showing up contaminated:
A member of the public who visited the bar where the former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned has tested positive for polonium-210, the Health Protection Agency revealed yesterday.
The person was one of about 250 who drank in the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel, Mayfair, on November 1, the day Mr Litvinenko received a fatal dose of the radioactive element.
This would seem to say that the Pine Bar did not see a form of Po-210 that was able to disperse widely and contaminate or poison many people. And it may be the bar was not, in fact, were Litvinenko was exosed. Only one customer showing signs of contamination? In fact it would suggest just the opposite. Why would bar staff be contaminated and not patrons? The tea cup and the dishwasher of course. The bar staff are in the kitchen in the back, and if the dish washer was the source of Po-210 laced steam then it would make sense. The cup doesn’t necessarily make the site of contamination the bar. It only makes it the site of dispersion – apparently limited to the kitchen area.
The real question is when was the Pine Bar contaminated? One thing is for sure, the HPA is contacting people that were at the Millenium from Oct 31st (when Lugovoi arrived with his family) to November 2nd. So it seems the contamination could have been as early as Oct 31st. Was Litvinenko there the first day Lugovoi arrived? Very possibly.
Now putting this all back together again we have the three hotels with known dates that coincide with meetings between Lugovoi and Litvinenko and mutiple rooms of contamination:
(1) Millenium Hotel Room (Oct 30-Nov 3 Period)
(2) Sheraton Hotel Room (Oct 25-28 Period)
(3) Parkes Hotel in Knightsbridge (Oct 16-18 Period)
It would seem from the reporting here that the fourth hotel, the Shaftesbury Best Western, is coincidental with one of these trips. From one of the earlier links we find this very interesting tidbit:
A member of staff at the Best Western Hotel in Piccadilly, believed to be where one of Mr Litvinenko’s associates stayed, has also shown signs of exposure to polonium-210, the agency said, bringing the total number of people contaminated with radioactivity to 12.
I find it interesting that this last hotel is linked to a never-before-mentioned associate of Litvinenko’s. Not an associate of Lugovoi’s or Kovtun’s. An associate of Litvinenko’s. With two rooms found contaminated. But we do not know which time frame the contamination is linked to! Was it one of the earlier rounds of supposed smuggling of Po-210? Was it any of these? The time frames above are purely associated with Lugovoi trips to London to meet Litvinenko and the fact hotel rooms associated with Lugovoi and people who travelled with him showed up contaminated. The Shaftesbury is the one hotel which seems to break this pattern.
We have a new person and a new hotel to fold into our calculations. Clearly the material is not being dispersed widely in transport. But it does seem to take flight when it is in hotel rooms and is possible being handled outside the containment of what is used to transport it. Certain locations showed more than a spot of trail, they showed serious contamination. The most important is a 4th floor hotel room in the Millenium Hotel, and apparently the Pine Bar kitchen (not the bar area itself). But even staff who are exposed to the locations are showing very low poisoning. So how do we explain Litvinenko and Kovtun? Clearly they were present when the material was “out of the bag” and more free to disperse. Is this pattern seen in more than one hotel? Is it seen in Berezovsky’s office or the security companies visited by Litvinenko and Lugovoi? And who is this mysterious new associate of Litvinenko’s with the contaminated hotel rooms?
I still would like to know the nature of the polonium they are finding. Is it metallic or a polonium salt? I really can’t speculate unless I know the answer to that question.
But here is a dilema. Imagine a bit of it dropped into a carpet or fabric of a piece of furniture. Say a piece the size of a grain of salt. Chances of someone actually ingesting that piece are extremely slim, even if they rolled on the floor. There could be more of it too, once a piece works its way down into the pile of carpet, for example, it might be impossible to detect. The carpet fibers would shield the alpha rays from any detector, even one held a centimeter away from the particle.
A piece that falls between seat cusions would also be extremely difficult to detect. It could be disturbed by housekeeping employees who would vacuum the floor and furniture at intervals.
What bothers me is that it appears that the more they look, the more they find. This would seem to indicate ongoing activity in movement of polonium for whatever purpose going back several weeks and involving several people.
While it is true that polonium will scatter itself about if left exposed, the nature of these scatterings will be atomic and not particles. In other words, the action of the alpha particles will knock atoms of polonium into the air which being heavier than lead, will eventually settle out or collect on air filters. But this deposit will look much like vapor deposition … a thin film of atoms … not whole particles of the stuff. To understand what is going on, one needs to understand the nature of the contamination they are finding.
Let’s see? Liquid salts that leak and leave a trail.
Speaks to MISHANDLING the merchandise, doesn’t it?
More than one shipment? Why not?
What’s the design of the “carrying commodity?” In other words no one would have been stupid enough to drink this “potion” in its liquid form, because it BURNED the porcelain on the tea cup, in evidence.
INHALED? Who spritz’ed it? Was it “sealed” in a bottle of perfume? So it would “pass through” the various countries it traveled through?
And, as violently ill as Litvenenko got, the “mastermind” told LIES! From start to finish. Because he didn’t think he was “contaminated.”
SO he blamed the Italian guy.
But the Italian guy wasn’t the guilty party. And, Litvenenko isn’t alive anymore. (Just like Oswald’s dead). To either clear his name up. Or talk about all the stuff that PRECEEDED the “event.”
But the contamination, it seemed, leaked slowly. And, a lot of people’s hands touched the stuff. Or was around it. Making what “blew up” a work accident of magnificent proportions.
Occam’s razor would still credit GREED and STUPIDITY; before it would create a plot out of MacGuffin’s.
The Kovtun and Lugovoi story is BS just like when Scaramella tried the same story, the “const of assassination” argument is meaningless if a government is producing the Po, this is all pretty much as I’d expected. I wonder if, like the mix-up of the US and UK in your post a few days ago, whether the “associate of Litvinenko” is actually that “associate of Lugovoi” sighted on the plane before the Nov 1 meeting/poisoning.
CP,
It would seem the trail in public locations is in clear ‘spots’, so it must be a salt form and either melts into the material or dries to it. Hard to believe it is free floating particles.
Litvinenko apparently ingested and inhaled the material. It could have been in salt form or particulates of metal – but I doubt it was in two different forms in this incident. The Pine Bar dishwasher seems to have transformed it from something that did not spread into the steam vapor which did spread – but with low doses. So it was a low amount diluted by the water and washing.
The rooms show hot spots as well. Berezovsky’s office couch and copier. The hotel rug and light switch. So I would conclude a salt of some type? I am like you – this part has me totally stumped.
What are the uses that make sense in a salt form? If it was to be used in a trigger it would require processing from the salt form and being formed with Beryllium into the proper solid metal. Sounds like a lot of work. And we know it is not purified like most Po-210 production runs.
A high density salt in small particulate sizes could be used in a dirty or smokey bomb as is. The explosion or fire could release the Polonium from the salt and lift it into the air.
I am just stumped here. Your thoughts?
It would almost certainly be in the form of a salt if used as a poison. You would want something that would dissolve. A piece of the metal dropped into tea might dissolve a tiny bit but it could also likely end up stuck to the side of the cup and never ingested.
Making such a salt would be a dangerous process and would be done in a lab.
BUT, having said that, the metal, once ingested, reacts with stomach acid to form a chloride salt (probably polonium dichloride, I think) which would leave salt deposits with droplets of sweat, fingerprints, urine, etc.
CP,
What I was wondering (and I think you answered) is the salt form is a difficult form to move in and out of. So it would be safe to assume the form it came into the country in was probably a form that was useful to its application.
I guess the fact the contaminates from the barrium bombardment were still in the material would possibly point to the metallic form, not the salt form – wouldn’t it?
That would be bismuth bombardment and other than speculation by one news source whose story has been repeated around the reporting circles, I have not heard from British authorities that any such contaminates have been found.
But yes, if there is any suggestion that the material can be traced, then it must be in the metallic form. This would indicate traffic in the material as the use as a poison would be mostly likely as a soluble salt or solution of said salt.
Again, this is why our speculations mean nothing if we don’t know the nature of the polonium being found. Different forms would lead me to greatly differing conclusions.
All we really know for sure is that Litvinenko is dead and that some form of polonium contamination has been found. The most solid indication I have so far concerning the type of contamination is a report from the German investigators early on who said that while some of the contamination from Kovtun was in the form consistant with body fluid contamination, some of it was in a form that would be consistant with directly handling polonium. Which leads me to the conclusion that the Germans found metallic polonium which reinforces my suspicion of a smuggling ring while at the same time diminishing my suspicion that it was to be used as a poison.
CP (and others),
I have been hearing, and there were ealier reports, that the material was traced to its production source using the material itself – which rules out the salt form and the assassination angle then.
Just as I suspected. How sure are you on the point if the material is still in the production form it is not an assassination? That is where I have been for a while.
And thanks for the correction. Barrium, Beryllium, Bismuth….
I should know better and take the time to check. But that can be Boron’ing
Crosspatch,
A very good observation indeed.
If this was a metallic Polonium it is unclear why they would bring it to the bar. All of them have college degrees and understood the consequences. Also motives are unexplainable. But at least this explains how other members of public were contaminated. Something should be the air flow to contaminate both staff and visitors.
If this was a polonium salt, how on earth they could spill it at the bar unless they were in the powder from top to bottom. It is also completely unclear how it can get into somebody else digestive tract. Unless all-three of them chain-smoked polonium salt-laced cigarettes 🙂
Something is fishy here.
“I have been hearing, and there were ealier reports, that the material was traced to its production source using the material itself”
That originated from one single report in the Evening Standard and has never been confirmed but widely reported.
“How sure are you on the point if the material is still in the production form it is not an assassination?”
Well, it wouldn’t be a government assassination. Polonium would make a fine poison, but not in the metallic form. Just as arsenic and thallium are not used in the metallic form but in the form of salts. This is because you want the material to dissolve in whatever it is placed. A bit of polonium metal placed in a cup of tea would sink straight to the bottom. If the target does not finish the drink completely, the material would never be ingested. If the target does finish the drink, the speck of metal might get buried in sugar residue or simply stick to the side of the cup as the last drop is finished.
In other words, if used in a drink, metallic polonium would be a poor choice as you could not be sure the dose would be injested. A soluble salt, however, would dissolve in the drink. Even if the target had a single sip, some of the polonium would be ingested.
Someone who was trafficing in the metal and wanted to use it to kill someone might use some of it for that purpose. A group or government whose entire purpose is assassination would use it in a soluble form. Particularly a group such as the Russian government who would have poison labs capable or producing such a salt “safely”.
AJ,
Based on this and other evidence would you guess the authorities are now quietly more or less giving up the assassination angle?
CP,
I am hearing this behind the scenes from people with sources in law enforcement about the tracing (I am just a lowly blogger). But the reporting, as I am finding out, was much more extensive than one source. I am planning an update post to add our discussions, but one Times article quoted a high level UK source attending the Cobra meetings (their anti-terrorism board) that the spil in the hotel room of the Millenium was metallic Po-210. So I am thinking the assassination angle is about dead.
And with your comments I think we are there. If the trail shows signs of metallic Po-210, then it was not an assassination. The process to convert is dangerous and requires a lab, so an assassination would have this done out of country and before the attack. The fact the material was traceable to a production site means it was metallic form because salt forms lose the ‘signatures’ of the production process as only the Polonium-210 becomes disolved (the lead and bismuth, etc would precipitate out?).
So the ‘spots’ on the trail are particles that dropped off and adhered to material, etc. BTW, >a href=”http://www.llrc.org/health/subtopic/polonium.htm”>check this out.
Does anyone know if there is any sort of reagent for this stuff, that can effectively neutralize it, or do you just have to sort of clean it up to the point where it spreads less easily and then wait for the half-life to take over?
If ever a dirty bomb is successfully triggered we’d better find a way to do it…
Gotta Know,
All the reporting I have seen is there is no neutralizing agent. Contain and let it sit for two years.
AJStrata
Well, the thing is when you dissolve the polonium in an acid, the extent to which the other contaminates dissolve may differ. Polonium is soluble in weak acids, some of the contaminants might not be. Also key in finding a source is the ratios of the various contaminates. These form a fingerprint. If you eliminate some and change the ratios of others, it becomes extremely difficult to determine the original contaminate levels of the metallic sample.
And you can’t “reverse engineer” it by taking samples of polonium and dissolving them in the suspected acid because you don’t know the concentration of the acid originally used. That will also yeild different amounts of other contaminants.
So lets say you have hydrochloric acid, dissolve in some polonium to create a salt, neutralize the remaining acid and precipitate the polonium either chemically or through evaporation to leave polonium salt crystals. There would be practically no way to determine the various contamination levels of the original metal. Also, the polonium often goes through a thermal refining process before it ever leaves its place of manufacture which further changes the ratio of various contaminates.
“Does anyone know if there is any sort of reagent for this stuff, that can effectively neutralize it,”
Not directly. You might be able to transmutate the polonium into a different element though bombardment in a reactor or acellerator, but that is about it. With po-210 it is the actual polonium atoms that cause the problem so unless you can turn those atoms themselves into something other than polonium-210 … you are stuck with the problem.
Even in a salt solution, a polonium atom would decay into a lead atom and release an alpha particle.
And thanks, AJ for keeping up with this story. No matter how it turns out, I believe it is going to be responsible for some major changes in how illicit trade in nuclear material is watched.
Thanks AJ and CP for responses.
On the form, based on how toxic the stuff is I am not sure that the metallic form would rule out assassination. First of all it seems we are dealing with people who don’t know what they’re doing, at least not completely. Second of all, wouldn’t a tiny amount of metal kill anyway?
But that’s a digression, the preponderance of evidence pointing to something much bigger. I am wondering: Given that so much of the contamination would have to be from an airborne event (including Litvinenko’s lungs), would that indicate one form over another?
Hmmm
What do I know but is seems quite straightforward to me. Neither state or smugglers would use Polonium 210 to kill someone. Never been used before and there was little chance it would go unnoticed in UK. Too absurd to consider. So what has happened here? In the same way that if the car does not start you first check the battery, what is the simplest explanation for what has happened? Firstly it is pretty clear that Polonium 210 in some form is being moved from country to country for reasons, no doubt sinister, unknown. As mentioned in other posts most likely in metallic form which is known to creep given any opportunity. From Sunday Times in UK :-
”On the morning of Nov. 1, the former agent met with another former KGB spy Andrei Lugovoy _ who had come to watch the Russian soccer team CSKA Moscow _ and two other men he had never met before.
Drinking a cup of tea the men had ordered, Litvinenko discussed a joint business venture and said he was homesick for Russia.”
Now let us suppose that as result of shaking hands/hugging/ his friends or indeed just handling or checking that the top of ‘something’ was secure Litvinenko gets a small amount of Polonium 210 on his hands including tips of thumbs and fingers. Then he unwraps a few sugar lumps to put in his tea (Russians generally like their tea sweet) and without knowing accidentally poisons himself by introducing a few flecks of Polonium 210 along with the sugar to his tea. Sweet tastes are known to mask metallic tastes – if indeed there would be any taste at all from the tiny amounts of Polonium present. Later that day he feels very ill and assumes sushi food poisoning and so loiters quite happily in Watford General Hospital for a while. Then the suggestion that he has been poisoned is put to him. Polonium not mentioned at this stage and of course he thinks that he has been betrayed and poisoned with Thallium or whatever. Later even when he is told that it is Polonium he still has no reason to realise that he has accidentally poisoned himself. He genuinely believes that Putin has got to him.
Subzero
The small amount of polonium we are talking about here would have left no taste diluted in his tea but it would fall right to the bottom and be buried in sugar residue. More likely it fell onto a cookie or something that they ate.