Polonium-210 Available Through Mail Order

Knutsi writes "InformationWeek is reporting that Polonium 210, the radioactive material used to poison former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko is not as hard to get your hands on as some have previously stated. American family business United Nuclear is actually selling the stuff, and other equally exotic materials, on their company website. Could come in handy for the xmas shopping season."

Comments

Polonium and Smoking

[Venner]

I found it a bit amusing when they stated that Polonium was hard to obtain. It is actually drawn from the soil into Tobacco plants and is one of the Really Bad Things implicated in smoking and cancer (along with
the also-radioactive Lead-210, which emits gamma rays and decays into Polonium eventually.)

Polonium-210 is an alpha emitter - something you really don't want to ingest.
I'd have to look up dose-equivalents, etc, but if I remember correctly, it was estimated a two-pack-a-day smoker gets the radioactive equivalent of something like 300 chest X-rays a year. And remember that these are heavy metals that stay in the body for a long time!

Re:I might be missing something.....

[MustardMan]

And unlike e.g. guns, polonium 210 has other uses than to kill people.

Ugh. The vast majority of guns in the US have never, nor will they ever, be used for killing people. Seeing as how we have so few natural predators left, hunting is an absolutely vital element of the wildlife conservation effort in many countries. Hunting provides healthy, lean meat, untreated by growth hormones and antibiotics, it controls populations, reducing disease and famine, it provides funding for programs that preserve wildlife habitats....

Guns can be used for a lot more than shooting people.

Re:A Lump of Polonium 210...

[marcello_dl]

What makes you think it's a KGB operation?

For simple minds, it's KGB because an exotic poison like radioactive polonium seems kind of a signature it's no ordinary killing.

For smarty people, it couldn't be a KGB operation because KGB is not so stupid to poison people with exotic stuff when they have ways to make appear it an ordinary killing.

For chess playing soviet russia folks it could be a KGB operation because KGB could use the polonium as a too obvious link to make people think they're being framed while they're behind it all.

But, the odds are 50%. So I'd not point the finger at Putin so fast.

FUD: Pity the Amateur Scientist

[obtuse]

http://www.unitednuclear.com/isotopes.htm Here's their explanation.

Not enough to poison someone, almost impossible to extract, etc. Poor United Nuclear will probably be run out of business just like everyone else who helps amateur scientists.

Won't detect Po210...

[Ellis D. Tripp]

Po210 is an alpha emitter, so the radiation from it won't penetrate the walls of a Geiger tube to register a reading. Geiger counters are only useful for Beta and Gamma sources.

What you need to detect an Alpha source is a scintillation detector.