So let’s say for the sake of argument that Israel did kill him.
I’ll be honest, I’m not feeling any outrage here.
I think so, but I don’t think that means that I do. Or maybe I do, but don’t think I do. Or maybe the fact that I do think so means that I don’t. Or something.
Or maybe I don’t, so I do. So I do if I don’t.
Thanks for asking - now my head hurts.
Regards,
Shodan
So, uh, does this belief encompass all state-sponsored terrorism and assassinations or just this one special case?
- Honesty
You’re obviously not a scientist. Your response reminds me when Fox News says “Global warming is just a hypothesis”.
- Honesty
Do you mean it?
Regards,
Shodan
I didn’t see any Americans crying when their government assassinated Bin Laden.
A French lab also has samples.
The relatively low dose of polonium? There is detectable amounts of polonium in bone this many years later. Bone marrow is the first to be affected by pololium toxicity at relatively low doses and GI systems later (cites already provided). It is generally the bone marrow effects that are the cause of death. YOU estimated 65 times the lethal dose.
Cite please for your made up shit that major GI effects occur at lower doses than bone marrow suppression. Because I’ve already cited otherwise. Here:
The only scenarios in which you might not see bone marrow suppression from a fatal polonium poisoning are one of such a low dose that the fatality is a late cancer or such a high dose that the GI toxicity kills you within days (before the marrow has a chance to be impacted). Arafat’s marrow samples were done on day 13 of illness and several days later. He never developed lymphopenia throughout the month course from presentation to his death. That is inconsistent with either of those scenarios. Is it impossible? Maybe not. I don’t have a hard cite for how long it takes for the marrow to be impacted … maybe there is a wider time window and a very high dose killed from acute GI complications before the marrow was impacted, but I find three weeks without lymphopenia with a high dose as fairly improbable at the least.
At this point it is a lab result inconsistent with the clinical presentation. IF the other two labs release results that replicate the findings then that delay of marrow impact would have to be the case. Until then lab error leads the list.
And yes I am familiar with what individual scientists mean when they say “moderately probable” … it means they are taking a guess that their preferred hypothesis is correct but they do not have enough data or knowledge to give any kind of error bars or p value. And they know it. It means they think better than 50/50 but do not know that such is the case.
What did you think it meant?
Okay, I found more. The low point for white blood cell counts after radiation exposure occurs within 7 to 14 days. Give a day or two for the polonium to get to the bone (it shouldn’t take that long but what the hell) … it is more than highly probable that someone with a high dose of polonium, a dose high enough to cause severe enterocolitis in a rapid fatal time course, would have lymphopenia and marrow hypocellularity within 16 days of exposure on the outside. Arafat did not have that. It is more than “moderately probable” that the lab report is in error … I’d go so far as “highly probable.”
BTW, since you brought up climate change … they actually define their terms. When they say there it is “very likely” that mean sea level rise will contribute to more extreme coastal events in the future, they mean “>90%” likely. “Likely” means 66%. If they believe the data is 99% confidence they say “virtually certain.” And that is a consensus of panels of scientists, not one lab in an unpublished not peer reviewed report.
I’m not seeing the “state-sponsored terrorism” angle in this particular case (and again, I’m just assuming for the sake of argument that Israel was behind it), but I guess I’ll dole out my outrage on a case-by-case basis.
Thank you. I did not know this. It’s difficult however to weigh data from the French and Russians when they have not submitted their data.
[QUOTE=DSeid]
Cite please for your made up shit that major GI effects occur at lower doses than bone marrow suppression. Because I’ve already cited otherwise.
[/QUOTE]
DSeid, I want to preface my answer with a question: you realize there is scant research on the effects of polonium on biological systems, right? It isn’t as if there are hundreds of articles on PubMed detailing the effects of polonium or the chronic exposure thereof on humans or in animals. The type of certainty you desire will not occur with the paucity of research that presently exist on polonium.
However, Froidevaux et al. tackled this question head-on and feel they enunciate it clearer than I ever could. The authors write, in part:
[QUOTE=Froidevaux et al. (2013)]
It can be argued that the clinical features are not consistent with acute radiation syndrome (ARS). However, symptoms of ARS reported in the literature refer almost exclusively to situations of acute whole-body external exposure. In a case of protracted internal exposure, the clinical features would depend on many parameters, mainly the type of radionuclide, its chemical form, the route of exposure (inhalation or ingestion) and the amount of activity intake. The Litvinenko case is the only known case of a lethal ingestion of 210Po in a human. Regrettably this case has not been reported in the scientific literature and so the clinical features of his illness had to be studied from media reports.
It is also true that aging cannot completely explain the absence of myelosuppression. Nevertheless, since aging is associated with decreased bone marrow cellularity (i.e. increased adipocyte concentration), one could expect that less alpha-particle energy is deposited within active bone marrow. This results in a lower absorbed dose to active bone marrow and thus a potentially reduced myelosuppression in the elderly.
Also, it cannot be ruled out that that the gastrointestinal syndrome would not predominate in a case of ingested 210Po. Indeed, Harrison et al., [12] reported results from a rat study suggesting damage to the gut mucosa as a possible cause of death in a case of 210Po ingestion. Along with this statement, Scott reported that in the event of a 210Po-210 ingestion: “Death occurs via one of the two modes (among several possible modes) with the two lowest thresholds: hematopoietic and gastrointestinal”.
Regarding the dose level, Harrison et al. reported that: “It is possible, therefore, that gut doses may have been substantially underestimated by not taking account of retained 210Po”. Moreover, using the average absorbed dose within the organ to characterize the dose-response relationship and the LD50 is questionable because of the potentially high level of heterogeneity of dose deposition within the organ in case of an alpha-emitting radionuclide, where devastating effects are localized in the direct vicinity of the decaying atom. For instance, Hobbs et al. showed that cell level-based dosimetry, unlike usual red marrow dosimetry, was able to explain the unexpected lower marrow toxicities observed in clinical studies with 223Ra, another alpha-emitting radionuclide (but a bone-seeker unlike 210Po) used to treat bone metastases.
[/QUOTE]
I want to add more, but honestly, there’s nothing else that needs to be said.
- Honesty
The problem with that handwaving is that they are trying to explain why there might not have been significant amounts of polonium depositied in bone (the lack of myelosuppression then being secondary to the lack of polonium in bone and thus lack of radiation in that specific location) … yet they claim to have found significant amounts of polonium in the bone at this late date which, if true, eliminates that possibility. If their data is true then there was a very high amount of polonium deposited in bone at the time of illness. Their own data falsifies the hypothesis. (And the question is not which would be cause of death, myelosuppression or GI effets, that is a complete red herring; it is how to explain no myelosuppression when you are advancing high levels of polonium in bone as key evidence of Arafat having been poisoned.)
Again, their argument is: we conclude he was poisoned with polonium because we have documented high levels in his artifacts and in his bones and we explain his lack of myelosuppression by speculating that maybe it was not deposited in his bones.
They really cannot simultaneously claim that there is significant amount of polonium in bone at this point in time, which extrapolates backwards to a huge dose deposited in bone and in the body at the time of illness, and that there may not have been polonium deposited in bone as an explanation for why no myelosuppression. Well they can, because they did, but it is very stupid to do so.
When someone advances that sort of argument they have demonstrated that they are not impartial but have a preferred hypothesis that they will support whatever the facts may show.
As far as the lack of research on polonium toxicity … there is enough to know that if there is a significant amount in bone now then there was a very large amount in bone at the time of illness, that if there was a large amount of polonium present in bone at the time of illness there would have been significant myelosuppression with a hypocellular marrow (instead of a very active marrow) by 15 days after exposure.
Seriously.
I have no great grief over Arafat’s death. I don’t see the Israelis as the most likely suspects if he had been murdered, let alone by polonium. I wouldn’t have particularly cared overmuch if the Israelis had killed him by any means at the time, a bullet, a bomb … other than thinking it was stupid to do so as the Israelis were better off with him at the time than without him and that in general targeted killing accomplishes little.
But I will be more than a bit surprised if either other lab replicates these results. Until those results are released taking these results at face value is very unwarranted.
Perhaps someone was poisoning him with polonium and he died of natural causes.
Really? Sounds more like mumbling to me, given that their analysis is larded with phrases such as “It can be argued that…cannot completely explain…it cannot be ruled out…It is possible…” 
This was not addressed to me, but raising questions and exposing flaws about studies is at the heart of science.
To those who’ve convinced themselves on the basis of limited and dubious evidence (and who find a degree of certainty in it that those who present such evidence don’t share), there’s not much more that can be said.
And now there’s word that findings from a French forensic lab have ruled out polonium poisoning in the death of Arafat, and suggest natural causes instead.
So now it’s semi-official, two negative results for polonium poisoning, and one definitely probably maybe. This should reassure everyone. 
:eek::smack:
And we will no doubt have a parade of posters apologizing to people who were earlier attacked for not apologizing for being skeptics. :dubious:
Note: there is a Wall. St. Journal article (not linkable) which raises multiple possibilities for how polonium traces might have been found on Arafat/his belongings, including minute amounts from power sources for listening devices.
Mossad paid you to say that, didn’t they?
Regards,
Shodan
Actually, many did.
But they’re all Republicans.
<sigh>
Jackmannii, let’s assume you’re a undergraduate or graduate student who has just found out that Gene X was activated by Transcription Factor Y in some human cell line. How do you let people know about it? Given your link, bless your heart, I strongly suspect you think that you would just send out a press release with your data or post it on facebook and reddit.
This, of course, is not how it’s done. If you make a novel discovery, you send your data through the peer review process. You probably think I am making this up, but I assure it’s true. Think about it for a moment: imagine if drug companies simply alleged a result without making the data public? This isn’t called science, Jackmannii, this is called faith.
If the French and Russian labs have concluded that Yasser Arafat died of natural causes, it is incumbent on the labs to release that data rather than one-line press releases. I have not been able to locate the supposed original French or Russian report. Until these labs release their data along with the pertinent negative values for polonium from Yasser Arafat’s belongings, it is unclear how anyone is supposed to take the data (a press release as this point) as fact.
For argument’s sake, let’s assume that Yasser Arafat died of natural causes as outlined by the non-existent report by the French. What evidence is there that the scientists were not threatened by Israel or any other country to come up with a negative result? The French (and Russians) are so hungry to say that he died of natural causes, they’ve neglected to put out the corresponding data. Also, do we assume that the Swiss scientists are fraudulent?
Shit I gotta go.
- Honesty
Yes, what evidence is there that this isn’t all just a Zionist conspiracy to conceal the truth? Until someone proves otherwise, it must be assumed that ZOG and the Jew bankers threatened the French and the Russians to come up with a negative result.
Oh wait, you were actually serious.
What evidence is there that the Blessed Virgin Mary didn’t appear to them and appeal to them in tones of loving gentle mercy?
BrainGlutton, you’ve just come off a suspension for behavior like this. Such remarks have a place in political threads. However, this is not such a thread.
No warning issued but don’t do it again. You will contain your political comments to political threads. I hope that’s clear.