# How did they decontaminate the hotel where Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-decontaminate-the-hotel-where-alexander-litvinenko-was-poisoned/454211
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 25, 2008, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-decontaminate-the-hotel-where-alexander-litvinenko-was-poisoned/454211 "2008-06-25T18:56:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2008, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-decontaminate-the-hotel-where-alexander-litvinenko-was-poisoned/454211/1 "2008-06-25T18:56:59Z")
Alexander Litvinenko was [poisoned](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko_poisoning) in 2006 at the Millennium Mayfair Hotel in London in 2006. After ingesting polonium in his tea, he left a measurable trail of polonium everywhere he went, as did the guys who poisoned him. More polonium was left in his tea cup, and presumably elsewhere in the hotel.
Now, polonium is pretty nasty stuff. It takes less than 1 _microgram_ of the stuff to kill a man. How the heck do you go about decontaminating a hotel bar from that kind of thing? Presumably they were confident they did a good job, as the hotel is still open as normal, including the [Pine Bar](http://www.millenniumhotels.co.uk/millenniummayfair/restaurant/Pine_Bar.html) where the incident took place.
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2008, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-decontaminate-the-hotel-where-alexander-litvinenko-was-poisoned/454211/2 "2008-06-25T19:20:05Z")
“Housekeeping! You want I come back later?”
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### Author:  [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2008, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-decontaminate-the-hotel-where-alexander-litvinenko-was-poisoned/454211/3 "2008-06-25T19:27:30Z")
They probably removed anything that had a trace and disposed of it as nuclear waste. That was the procedure used for the [Radioactive Boy Scout](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn)’s lab (a garden shed).
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### Author:  [@Canadjun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadjun)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2008, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-decontaminate-the-hotel-where-alexander-litvinenko-was-poisoned/454211/4 "2008-06-25T20:26:32Z")
Slightly off the original topic, but anyone know WHY polonium was used to kill him? Seems like getting the stuff (even with an unfriendly government backing you up) in the first place and then carrying it around more or less safely until it could be delivered to the victim seems an awfully big hassle when there are so many other quite deadly but much more convenient poisons.
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### Author:  [@Mr\_Buttons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Buttons)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2008, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-decontaminate-the-hotel-where-alexander-litvinenko-was-poisoned/454211/5 "2008-06-25T21:07:08Z")
[QUOTE=Canadjun]
Slightly off the original topic, but anyone know WHY polonium was used to kill him? Seems like getting the stuff (even with an unfriendly government backing you up) in the first place and then carrying it around more or less safely until it could be delivered to the victim seems an awfully big hassle when there are so many other quite deadly but much more convenient poisons.
[/QUOTE]
It was highly likely that he was poisoned by the Russian Government. He was former KGB, and spoke out badly against his government. Russia wanted him dead, and they’ve got plenty of nuclear stuff laying around at their disposal.
In theory it was supposed to kill him in such a way that it would appear not strange, but Litvenenko was already paranoid about the government trying to shut him up. So he sought help as soon as he sensed something fishy going on in his body.
It’s not the first time Russia’s used poisoning to eliminate it’s enemies (they used dioxin on [this guy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yushchenko) .) Of course, I don’t think there has been 100% proof of Russia’s involvement in either one, but most informed people seem to agree that’s the case.
Who’s in charge of assassinations/poisonings in Russia anyways? That’s 2 major high-profile fuck ups in under 4 years. :smack:
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### Author:  [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2008, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-decontaminate-the-hotel-where-alexander-litvinenko-was-poisoned/454211/6 "2008-06-25T21:14:19Z")
[QUOTE=Mr Buttons]
Who’s in charge of assassinations/poisonings in Russia anyways? That’s 2 major high-profile fuck ups in under 4 years. :smack:
[/QUOTE]
Three if you count the failed poisoning of Anna Politkovskaya in 2004. They had to resort to shooting her.
Does anyone actually doubt that the FSB is behind Litvinenko’s death?
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### Author:  [@bufftabby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bufftabby)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2008, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-decontaminate-the-hotel-where-alexander-litvinenko-was-poisoned/454211/7 "2008-06-25T21:51:36Z")
[QUOTE=Colophon]
Alexander Litvinenko was [poisoned](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko_poisoning) in 2006 at the Millennium Mayfair Hotel in London in 2006. After ingesting polonium in his tea, he left a measurable trail of polonium everywhere he went, as did the guys who poisoned him. More polonium was left in his tea cup, and presumably elsewhere in the hotel.
Now, polonium is pretty nasty stuff. It takes less than 1 _microgram_ of the stuff to kill a man. How the heck do you go about decontaminating a hotel bar from that kind of thing? Presumably they were confident they did a good job, as the hotel is still open as normal, including the [Pine Bar](http://www.millenniumhotels.co.uk/millenniummayfair/restaurant/Pine_Bar.html) where the incident took place.
[/QUOTE]
Well, the stuff has to be ingested, inhaled, or injected, because it doesn’t pass through the skin (according to Wiki). The problems stemming from it come from absorption into the bloodstream, so the place might not need as serious of a detoxification as it initially seems. I’m still not gonna stay at that hotel.
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### Author:  [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2008, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-decontaminate-the-hotel-where-alexander-litvinenko-was-poisoned/454211/8 "2008-06-25T22:14:26Z")
[QUOTE=bufftabby]
The problems stemming from it come from absorption into the bloodstream, so the place might not need as serious of a detoxification as it initially seems.
[/QUOTE]
It was probably powdered, so inhalation and ingestation is a problem. Seeing as only a few micrograms are needed to cause death it is is not worth taking the risk. Easier just to rip out anything that tests positive.
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### Author:  [@WF\_Tomba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WF_Tomba)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2008, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-decontaminate-the-hotel-where-alexander-litvinenko-was-poisoned/454211/9 "2008-06-25T22:15:52Z")
[QUOTE=Szlater]
Three if you count the failed poisoning of Anna Politkovskaya in 2004. They had to resort to shooting her.
[/QUOTE]
Their problems in this area go back a [long](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_trotsky#Assassination) [way](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigory_Rasputin#Murder) . . .
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### Author:  [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2008, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-decontaminate-the-hotel-where-alexander-litvinenko-was-poisoned/454211/10 "2008-06-25T22:21:33Z")
[QUOTE=Szlater]
ingestation
[/QUOTE]
Yes, I really typed that. :smack:
Ingestion. I meant, ingestion.
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### Author:  [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2008, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-decontaminate-the-hotel-where-alexander-litvinenko-was-poisoned/454211/11 "2008-06-26T00:28:52Z")
ingestation is the age old technique of assassination-by-stomach-alien.
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### Author:  [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2008, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-decontaminate-the-hotel-where-alexander-litvinenko-was-poisoned/454211/12 "2008-06-26T02:13:16Z")
[QUOTE=Canadjun]
Slightly off the original topic, but anyone know WHY polonium was used to kill him? Seems like getting the stuff (even with an unfriendly government backing you up) in the first place and then carrying it around more or less safely until it could be delivered to the victim seems an awfully big hassle when there are so many other quite deadly but much more convenient poisons.
[/QUOTE]
There has been discussion that Polonium was picked precisely because it it so obscure, expensive, and hard to obtain - to send an unmistakable message about who was doing the killing.
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### Author:  [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2008, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-decontaminate-the-hotel-where-alexander-litvinenko-was-poisoned/454211/13 "2008-06-26T07:58:34Z")
[sup]210][/sup]Polonium has a halflife of 138 days, so it’s been 4.3 halflives, or 1/20th of the radioactivity - if any remained without being cleaned up.
The decontamination teams would have used detectors to track down particles of [sup]210[/sup]Po within the contaminated area to identify items to clean/remove. The problem with [sup]210[/sup]Po is the highly energetic alpha particles emitted causes the source material to “bounce” and spread from recoil - thus making it hard to contain without accidental contamination. I would not like to be the assassin, who was tracked by the trail of polonium contamination from Russia to the UK and back again.
Si
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### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2008, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-decontaminate-the-hotel-where-alexander-litvinenko-was-poisoned/454211/14 "2008-06-26T10:38:18Z")
[QUOTE=beowulff]
There has been discussion that Polonium was picked precisely because it it so obscure, expensive, and hard to obtain - to send an unmistakable message about who was doing the killing.
[/QUOTE]
Perhaps, but, the Wikipedia article and linked pages suggest that the Russians believed that, as an alpha-emitter, polonium was likely to go undetected in the victim. If you wanted to send a message, then you wouldn’t pick something that you think won’t be identified.
I used to work very close to the sushi restaurant where polonium was also discovered (IIRC they originally though that was where it was administered, but it turns out the suspected poisoners had visited previously, leaving contamination there), so I did wonder how much polonium residue was likely to be blowing through the streets of Piccadilly… :dubious:
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### Author:  [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2008, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-decontaminate-the-hotel-where-alexander-litvinenko-was-poisoned/454211/15 "2008-06-26T16:34:18Z")
Cheaper hard-to-detect methods must exist – and if they do, I’m certain the FSB knows about them. From that I conclude that the “send a very clear message” interpretation is the correct one. The Polonium pretty much could only have come from one place. Almost any more common poison opens up the “could have been anybody” deniability.
Sailboat
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2008, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-they-decontaminate-the-hotel-where-alexander-litvinenko-was-poisoned/454211/16 "2008-06-26T16:55:04Z")
[QUOTE=Szlater]
Does anyone actually doubt that the FSB is behind Litvinenko’s death?
[/QUOTE]
Presumably the Russian government denies it, and there must be a few people out there who believe them.