Litvinenko Radiation Attack: A Warning for the U.S.

Especially U.S. disidents, we would say.

Political Cortex: Litvinenko Radiation Attack: A Warning for the U.S.:

It's sometimes hard to tell if the British government's handling of a radiation poisoning case is inept or just poorly reported, but it certainly could be improved. The difficulty of the UK's response to a radiological attack on an individual demonstrates, on a much smaller scale, the kind of challenge Americans would face if terrorists used radioactive substances to inflict mass casualties in the United States.

By the time British government authorities publicly identified polonium-210 as the likely cause of Alexander Litvinenko's death, thousands of people had been exposed to cross-contamination as they passed through each of the places visited by the former Russian spy, and possibly his assassin, before he fell ill on November 1. It is unclear if doctors failed to quickly diagnose the cause, or if officials intentionally withheld the diagnosis for investigative purposes.