Litvinenko, Alexander

The severe health effects of exposure to Polonium-210 became frontpage news in 2006 when former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died. Litvinenko (44), who had sought political asylum in Great Britain in 2000, fell ill in November of 2006 and died several weeks later due to severe radiation poisoning. The source of the poisoning was a mystery and his death was investigated as a murder. 

Of the remaining metalloids, germanium is a semiconductor which is used extensively in fibre optics. Polonium was discovered by Pierre and Marie Curie, and named after her native land, which at that time did not exist as an independent country (it was under Russian, Prussian, and Austrian partition). We have already referred earlier to the murder of Alexander Litvinenko by lethal polonium-210-induced acute radiation syndrome. 

Also in Chapter 1 we briefly mentioned the case of poisoning of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko, a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service, FSB and KGB, escaped prosecution in Russia and received political asylum in the United Kingdom. He suddenly fell ill in London on the 1 November 2006, was hospitalised, and died three weeks later, becoming the first confirmed victim of lethal polonium-210-induced acute radiation syndrome. Traces of the polonium-210 were subsequently discovered at various locations in London visited by Mr Litvinenko as well as in Russia and on two British Airways flights. 

Finally, we recognize that, as with chemical toxicity, we should consider the effects of both acute and chronic exposure. High doses from radioisotopes seem an unlikely event. The nonlaboratory, intentional, and fatal poisoning in 2006 of Alexander Litvinenko, a former member of the Russian Federal Security Service, is an exceptional case shidy, however, where it appears that a tiny dose of 2i0po was used to murder him. Also unlikely, but possible, is a high-level exposure of radiation due to an accident at a nuclear reactor. Table 5.3.8.5 shows the effects of large radiation doses (measured in rem). In comparison. Table 5.3.S.6 shows dose levels (in mrem) for a variety of events, both chronic and acute. 

In 2006 the isotope Po-210 gained considerable notoriety because it was used in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, outspoken critic of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. If the dose of Po-210 in a person s body is 6.2 mCi (1 mCi = 1 X 10 Ci), calculate the number of atoms of Po-210 to which this radioactivity corresponds. (The half-life of °Po is 138.4 days.)... 

A. Goldfarb with M. Litvinenko, Death of a Dissident The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB, Free Press, 2007, p. 95. 

Franck, Thomas M., The Stealing of the Sahara, 70 Am.J. Int l L., 694 (1976) Goldfarb, Alex, and Litvinenko, Marina (2007) Death of a Dissident The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB, Simon Schuster Greenhouse, Steven, U.S. Says Russian Move Is An Internal Affair , New York Times, Dec. 12, 1994, A13... 

Accidental exposures to radioactivity have occurred when radioisotopes used in hospital radiotherapy or for industrial purposes have been disposed with general waste without suitable protection. In addition to accidental exposure, radioactivity has also been used in homicidal attacks as demonstrated by the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 by the radioisotope Polonium 210. 

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