Yasser Arafat polonium poisoning

[Drett]

after i wrote that post i actually went and looked at a chart of the whole radioactive decay series that includes polonium-210...i learned that radon-222 decays to polonium-210 in several steps...one of the intermediate steps is a form of lead that has a half life long enough that most of it would still be there after eight years...with some of it decaying further to form polonium-210 even now...

radon-222 is a dangerous but all too common natural contaminant...and i found some articles that said unusually high levels of radon-222 were found in arafat's grave... the swiss lab claimed that the polonium-210 that they found could not have been naturally occurring...i am not a nuclear physicist but i honestly can't see how that could say that with any certainty...polonium-210 is polonium-210 regardless of where it came from... so maybe they are overstating their case and the polonium-210 they found really could have been the result of postmortem decay of naturally occurring radon-222 concentrated in arafat's grave...

another thing i found out is that radon-222 is also involved in some 'quack' medical remedies...i know that arafat was sickly near the end of his life due to his bad health habits and the israeli government denying him access to competent medical care...so i wonder if he resorted to some kind of pseudoscientific radon elixir... in that case the radon-222 could have mostly decayed into a lead isotope which continues to decay into fresh polonium-210 long after his death...the radon-222 itself could have also given him deadly cancer... that might also account for the secrecy surrounding arafat's death...including his wife having his medical records sealed...there would have been a reluctance to say anything that would imply that his death was possibly in any way self inflicted...

or the polonium-210 could have been planted... or the swiss lab could be incompetent and the russian lab could be right...

i wonder if they tested for that long lived lead isotope that is an intermediate step between radon-222 and polonium-210?

You have the makings of a conspiracy theorist. BWAHAHAHAHAHA

 

[Drett]

You have the makings of a conspiracy theorist. BWAHAHAHAHAHA

I just reread this and I think come across like I was some kind a crazy guy laughing uncontrollably. I meant it as an evil laugh.

 

[RachelBibleStudent]

i know this is an old thread...but since nobody has posted an update since november...

a few weeks ago the french lab concluded that arafat died not die of polonium poisoning...
a few days ago the russian lab that had previously released findings that did not support the polonium poisoning theory also issued what appears to be their last word on the matter...that arafat did not die of polonium poisoning...

so now all three laboratories have released their findings...the swiss lab is the only one that concluded that arafat was poisoned with polonium...the other two labs concluded that he did not die of polonium poisoning...

reporting on the french findings suggests that the explanation involving naturally occurring radon-222 in arafat's grave was correct...the french lab seems to have concluded that all of the polonium-210 in the samples came from decay of the radon-222 that was naturally present in arafat's grave... that also seems to have confirmed my suspicion that the swiss lab had overstated its case when they claimed the polonium-210 they found in the samples could not have come from natural sources...

anyway...taken together with other facts such as the way arafat's hair did not fall out as is normal for polonium poisoning...the findings of the russian and french labs seem to definitively rule out polonium poisoning as the cause of arafat's death...

some of the palestinian activists involved in the case are now accusing the russian and french labs of scientific fraud...which is rather silly since they made the decision to contract the testing out to those labs in the first place...

 

[Drett]

Thanks for the update. The Swiss concluded it was a possibility. They did not state it outright.

 

[TheAristocat]

i know this is an old thread...but since nobody has posted an update since november...

a few weeks ago the french lab concluded that arafat died not die of polonium poisoning...
a few days ago the russian lab that had previously released findings that did not support the polonium poisoning theory also issued what appears to be their last word on the matter...that arafat did not die of polonium poisoning...

so now all three laboratories have released their findings...the swiss lab is the only one that concluded that arafat was poisoned with polonium...the other two labs concluded that he did not die of polonium poisoning...

reporting on the french findings suggests that the explanation involving naturally occurring radon-222 in arafat's grave was correct...the french lab seems to have concluded that all of the polonium-210 in the samples came from decay of the radon-222 that was naturally present in arafat's grave... that also seems to have confirmed my suspicion that the swiss lab had overstated its case when they claimed the polonium-210 they found in the samples could not have come from natural sources...

anyway...taken together with other facts such as the way arafat's hair did not fall out as is normal for polonium poisoning...the findings of the russian and french labs seem to definitively rule out polonium poisoning as the cause of arafat's death...

some of the palestinian activists involved in the case are now accusing the russian and french labs of scientific fraud...which is rather silly since they made the decision to contract the testing out to those labs in the first place...

good to hear

 

[zone]

this story isn't quite over.

 

[RachelBibleStudent]

this story isn't quite over.

for rational people scientific evidence means the story is over...