It's official: Yasser Arafat's belongings were contaminated with polonium

[aNewLeaf]

*“Arafat’s 10-Year-Old Underwear” would be an intriguing band name.

@Wile_E

“Underpants” is funnier than “underwear”. Just saying.

“Arafat’s Underpants” scans better without the 10 years.

Also, I hope nobody inspects my underwear after I die. Whether I was poisoned or not.

[Jackmannii]

@Honesty

The result from the hair is expected…if it causes the follicle cells to undergo apoptosis, there would be no hair to check (it would fall out).

I see. Arafat’s hair didn’t fall out due to alleged radiation exposure, but the hair sample was negative because it must have fallen out. (hint: rapidly dividing hair follicle cells are the hair elements that are vulnerable to radiation or other toxic exposure, and their death causes hair to fall out. Which didn’t happen here, but somehow you’ve got it covered both ways. Right.)

And the Russians were in league with the Israelis to conceal evidence of Arafat’s radiation poisoning, because as we all know the Russians are extremely sympathetic to the Israeli cause.

Impeccable logic on both points.

All this speculation must be extremely annoying to Mossad, which is far too sophisticated to use a killing method which is readily identifiable many years later, and instead used a non-detectable rapidly metabolized poison to do away with Arafat.

Oops.

[Honesty]

@Jackmannii

Unless Arafat’s undies and other personal items were taken by law enforcement upon his hospitalization and kept secure with proper chain of custody until being turned over to testers, there’s ample room for doubt about the significance of the findings (on that basis alone).

That’s not abuse of Occam’s Razor or layman arrogance - it’s common sense.Speaking as someone who’s authored peer-reviewed medical journal articles and has a good deal of familiarity with how such things are phrased*, that’s standard boilerplate for “we don’t have confirmatory evidence, but neither can we entirely exclude the possibility”.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the poisoning theory.

*Dopers, even if they don’t want to plow through journal articles, would enjoy letters to the editor about them and responses from the author(s). I was reading the Journal of the American Medical Association last night and some writers were taking the original authors to task for alleged omissions and distortions. It’s amazing how many cultured ways there are to say “You’re full of shit”.

Let me get this straight. There’s evidence that pieces of clothing that had Arafat’s body fluids have significantly more radioactivity than things that did not have his body fluids. There’s evidence that Arafat’s symptoms were consisted with ingestion of polonium and was consistent with acute radiation syndrome. There’s evidence that Arafat was a non-smoker and, at the time of his death, did not have any measurable levels of nicotine or contnine (metabolite of nicotine). There’s even evidence that “stained” portions of this clothing - dirty collars, blood-smeared caps, and urine-stained underwear - had higher radioactivity than non-stained (suggesting excretion of 210Po).

With all of that, Arafat didn’t die from polonium poisoning but by heart disease, Arafat’s belongings were purposefully tampered with to give the present result, Arafat’s belongings weren’t contaminated with polonium but by some other agent, that Arafat’s exposure to polonium 210 is from cigarette smoke, and that the researchers were biased (against whom?) in their investigation.
Honesty: “Do you hear the sound hoofbeats? What animal is that?”
IvoryTowerDenizen: It’s a cow
Terr: No, that’s not right, it’s a gazelle
Merneith: LOL! It has to be a dog.
Little Nemo: Sounds like a car to me, the evidence doesn’t exlcude it
Ferret Herder: That’s not an animal, though.
Jackmannii: I’m pretty sure it’s a frog.
Alessan: It’s a jackass.
Ferret Herder: That’s not an animal, either.
Sailboat: It’s a cigarette
Ferret Herder stares blankly at Sailboat.
Sailboat: Ok, what about cigarette smoke?
Shmendrik: It has to be a camel.
kayaker: Llama?
Wile E: It sounds like a coyote, to me. No bias, here.
carnivorousplant: Rooster?
aNewLeaf: It’s a galloping giraffe
Honesty: Ai yai yai

• Honesty

[Ferret_Herder]

@Jackmannii

That’s not abuse of Occam’s Razor or layman arrogance - it’s common sense.Speaking as someone who’s authored peer-reviewed medical journal articles and has a good deal of familiarity with how such things are phrased*, that’s standard boilerplate for “we don’t have confirmatory evidence, but neither can we entirely exclude the possibility”.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the poisoning theory.

Yup. If I were writing up an article and thought there was a very good chance that something was proved by our research, I wouldn’t use a double-negative sentence construct to try to nail that point home.

Good point about the chain of custody and storage too, by the way.

[IvoryTowerDenizen]

@Honesty

Honesty: “Do you hear the sound hoofbeats? What animal is that?”
IvoryTowerDenizen: It’s a cow
Terr: No, that’s not right, it’s a gazelle
Merneith: LOL! It has to be a dog.
Little Nemo: Sounds like a car to me, the evidence doesn’t exlcude it
Ferret Herder: That’s not an animal, though.
Jackmannii: I’m pretty sure it’s a frog.
Alessan: It’s a jackass.
Ferret Herder: That’s not an animal, either.
Sailboat: It’s a cigarette
Ferret Herder stares blankly at Sailboat.
Sailboat: Ok, what about cigarette smoke?
Shmendrik: It has to be a camel.
kayaker: Llama?
Wile E: It sounds like a coyote, to me. No bias, here.
carnivorousplant: Rooster?
aNewLeaf: It’s a galloping giraffe
Honesty: Ai yai yai

• Honesty

Why am I grouped i here?

I posted one link to a joke thread about what researchers “really mean” in research articles. I made no comment about the veracity of any of the claims?

Is this your version of “honest” posting? Utterly misrepresenting what is said?

[aNewLeaf]

aNewLeaf: It’s a galloping giraffe

I’m just talking about underpants. Polonium isn’t something I have experience with.

[kayaker]

@Honesty

Let me get this straight. There’s evidence that pieces of clothing that had Arafat’s body fluids have significantly more radioactivity than things that did not have his body fluids. There’s evidence that Arafat’s symptoms were consisted with ingestion of polonium and was consistent with acute radiation syndrome. There’s evidence that Arafat was a non-smoker and, at the time of his death, did not have any measurable levels of nicotine or contnine (metabolite of nicotine). There’s even evidence that “stained” portions of this clothing - dirty collars, blood-smeared caps, and urine-stained underwear - had higher radioactivity than non-stained (suggesting excretion of 210Po).

I just wanna say that I’m very sorry for your loss.

[Honesty]

@IvoryTowerDenizen

Why am I grouped i here?

I posted one link to a joke thread about what researchers “really mean” in research articles. I made no comment about the veracity of any of the claims?

Is this your version of “honest” posting? Utterly misrepresenting what is said?

The latter. I was half-joking at that part, I didn’t mean to offend.

• Honesty

[IvoryTowerDenizen]

@Honesty

The latter. I was half-joking at that part, I didn’t mean to offend.

• Honesty

Seriously? You swipe at everyone but didn’t mean to offend? OK…

[Honesty]

@IvoryTowerDenizen

Seriously? You swipe at everyone but didn’t mean to offend? OK…

Did you ever say “It’s a cow”? No, you didn’t. I know that. You know that. Anyone with a half-brain knows that. It was a joke, a half-assed attempt to highlight my frustration in this thread, that backfired (obviously). I apologize to you or anyone else that was offended. The mod has my permission to remove the skit part of that post if s/he chooses.

• Honesty

[aNewLeaf]

I wasn’t offended. But what can I do, speculate on who might have wanted him dead and how they got polonium?
I don’t know, and I don’t know (but probably bought from Russia originally) seems to be the answer.

And a certain amount of dribbling comes with age. Or so I’ve heard.

[Honesty]

@aNewLeaf

I wasn’t offended. But what can I do, speculate on who might have wanted him dead and how they got polonium?
I don’t know, and I don’t know (but probably bought from Russia originally) seems to be the answer.

And a certain amount of dribbling comes with age. Or so I’ve heard.

Yes, speculation is what I want. I’m curious on whether you believe he died from polonium poisoning or not. I’m assuming, based on your reply, that you do.

• Honesty

[Terr]

@Honesty

P.S Russians have NO credibility on this issue. They’re the clowns who used polonium 210 on Mr. Litvnenko and tried to cover it up. Did the Arafat’s widow give the Russians a sample? Where’s their paper?

From the article:

“In November 2012, Arafat’s body was exhumed and samples of it were given to French, Swiss and Russian forensic experts as part of the investigation.”

[aNewLeaf]

I dunno. Is polonium excreted in urine? Every poison has a metabolic pathway.
But even if his underwear shows polonium, that doesn’t get me to say “he was poisoned”.

Edit- but it wouldn’t surprise me. Lots of people wanted him dead. OTOH, he was a sick old man.

[Jackmannii]

@Honesty

There’s evidence that Arafat’s symptoms were consisted with ingestion of polonium and was consistent with acute radiation syndrome.

I’m afraid you have made a considerable leap of faith to get from “it is not possible to conclude that the clinical features of Mr. Arafat were incompatible with 210Po poisoning.” to “consistent with acute radiation syndrome”.

I hate to break this to you, but nausea and fatigue are very nonspecific symptoms that can relate to a large variety of medical conditions, including the ones with which Arafat was diagnosed (i.e. hepatic cirrhosis and cardiovascular disease). If we’re to conclude that anyone with these symptoms must have died of radiation exposure, then one hell of a lot of death certificates will need to be rewritten.

I’m still waiting for you to explain your theory that no radiation products were found in Arafat’s hair because it would have fallen out, but his hair didn’t fall out, which somehow doesn’t matter anyway, because so what.

Since you’re so fond of the “hoofbeats” analogy, allow me to suggest your conclusions are analogous to someone being awakened at night by a strange noise, and immediately concluding that an Israeli black horse of the apocalypse is galloping through his kitchen.

Here’s another analogous situation: when enough people suggest that you’re staggering around drunk, it may be time to lie down.

[Diceman]

@Terr

From the article:

“In November 2012, Arafat’s body was exhumed and samples of it were given to French, Swiss and Russian forensic experts as part of the investigation.”

Well, OK then. What are the French & Swiss saying about this? I’d believe them over the Russians any day.

[Merneith]

@Honesty

The result from the hair is expected. If you remember your freshman biology, hair is made out of individual (dead) cells stacked on top of one another. Since these cells have to go through mitosis, accretion of polonium into hair would take longer than month he was infected. In addition, there’s no data on how polonium interacts with hair follicles, heck, in fact, if it causes the follicle cells to undergo apoptosis, there would be no hair to check (it would fall out).

What I remember from biology is that hair becomes a record of sorts for the drugs and other contaminants in the body. What I know from elsewhere is that radiation exposure does not cause every single hair on the body to fall out entirely.

In point of fact, Arafat’s hair did not fall out.
http://www.france24.com/en/20131014-radiation-experts-confirm-polonium-arafat-clothing

They [the authors of the report] acknowledge, though, that Arafat showed no hair loss or decline in bone marrow activity – symptoms that typically occur in radiation poisoning.

Photos of Arafat all showed him with facial hair in various stages of growth, as well.

As for some nefarious force “planting something in his underpants.” Is that really a logical conclusion? Again, I leave you with another “If you hear hoofbeats behind you, it’s probably a horse.”

You’re positing some nefarious force that planted polonium on him while he was alive in order to kill him. Why is it more likely than a nefarious force that planted traces in his clothes in order to screw with the autopsy results? As Jackmannii points out correctly - there is no reliable chain of custody here.

Additionally - I also posited a simple mistake somewhere along the line, a point which you ignored.

P.S Russians have NO credibility on this issue. They’re the clowns who used polonium 210 on Mr. Litvnenko and tried to cover it up. Did the Arafat’s widow give the Russians a sample? Where’s their paper?

The Russians, along with French and Swiss groups, were part of the team of forensic scientists who exhumed Arafat’s body last November in order to try and determine his cause of death. Here is an article about the exhumation -
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/27/us-palestinians-arafat-idUSBRE8AP1A120121127

And here is the article - in Haaretz, no lease - where the Russians deny that they found traces of polonium in his tissues (I neglected to include this in my first post)

Russian official: Arafat did not die from polonium poisoning

Finally - if Mrs. Arafat wanted us to get to the bottom of her husband’s death, she should have permitted the autopsy which his doctors wanted in the first place. She’s the reason why an autopsy was never performed.

[twickster]

@Alessan

Or it may be a jackass.

I’m giving you a warning for personal insults. I don’t know how y’all behave in Great Debates but this won’t fly in MPSIMS.

twickster, MPSIMS moderator

[twickster]

@Honesty

Honesty: “Do you hear the sound hoofbeats? What animal is that?”
IvoryTowerDenizen: It’s a cow
Terr: No, that’s not right, it’s a gazelle
Merneith: LOL! It has to be a dog.
Little Nemo: Sounds like a car to me, the evidence doesn’t exlcude it
Ferret Herder: That’s not an animal, though.
Jackmannii: I’m pretty sure it’s a frog.
Alessan: It’s a jackass.
Ferret Herder: That’s not an animal, either.
Sailboat: It’s a cigarette
Ferret Herder stares blankly at Sailboat.
Sailboat: Ok, what about cigarette smoke?
Shmendrik: It has to be a camel.
kayaker: Llama?
Wile E: It sounds like a coyote, to me. No bias, here.
carnivorousplant: Rooster?
aNewLeaf: It’s a galloping giraffe
Honesty: Ai yai yai

• Honesty

@Honesty

The latter. I was half-joking at that part, I didn’t mean to offend.

• Honesty

The half that wasn’t joking succeded in being offensive. I’m not giving you a warning for this, but I strongly encourage you to dial it way back. We’re in MPSIMS, not Great Debates.

twickster, MPSIMS moderator

[Wile_E]

@Honesty

…
Honesty: “Do you hear the sound hoofbeats? What animal is that?”
…
Wile E: It sounds like a coyote, to me. No bias, here.
…

• Honesty

I probably would have said that, too, you totally get me. Also, thanks for including me even though my only contribution was to joke about underpants.