Reuters: L.A. hospital confirms women poisoned by thallium

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2007-03-10T004835Z_01_N09442953_RTRUKOC_0_US-RUSSIA-USA-POISON.xml

L.A. hospital confirms women poisoned by thallium

Fri Mar 9, 2007 7:48 PM ET

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A Los Angeles hospital confirmed on Friday that two U.S. women who became ill during a trip to their native Russia, prompting investigations by both countries, were suffering from thallium poisoning.

...

The State Department asked Moscow on Thursday to investigate the suspected poisoning of the Kovalevskys with thallium, a highly toxic metal that can cause a slow, painful death. The two women were initially hospitalized in Moscow and returned to Los Angeles on Wednesday.

Thallium was originally suspected in the murder in London last year of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, which sparked worldwide condemnation. He was later found to have died of poisoning by polonium.

...

"There was no reason in the world to poison Marina and Yana. They were not involved in anything at all," Marina's brother, Leon Peck, told the Los Angeles Times in an interview.

Peck told the newspaper that, because the Russian hospital where his sister and niece were being treated had no antidote for thallium poisoning, he flew there with one called Prussian Blue and, after they began taking it, saw an immediate improvement in their condition.

[Hekate]

1. 21st century Borgias have set up shop in Russia...

Very, very creepy. I wonder if all this bad news has affected tourism and investment? It sure can't be doing anything for the morale of the Russian people.

Hekte

[electron_blue]

2. Okay, so just hypothetically, how would they be "accidentally" poisoned?

Anybody know?

Another report about this claims that the women were not targeted for murder, they were just poisoned accidentally.

??

seriously? Does this mean someone else was the target, or that their is thallium just free and loose out there?

excerpt from CNN web page:

"The two women, who were born in the former Soviet Union, don't believe they were deliberately poisoned, their lawyer, Frank Capwell, told AP.

"No cloak-and-dagger, no conspiracy theories came to light. It was just painfully obvious that it was just an accident," he said, according to AP.

[Lisa]

3. is thallium still used in some rodent poisons?

I suppose it's possible that some careless person grabbed the wrong container in a kitchen. But in that case, there would probably be more cases showing up.

[electron_blue]

4. That's what I was thinking. I don't think it's easy to get.

And if it were in something like rat poison, or another remotely easily had item, it would be mentioned in the story for its fear-mongering if nothing else. Instead we're told it was obviously a case of accidental poisoning, with none of the details. When the details are probably, I bet, news-worthy in this day and age.