http://my.ev1.net/english/news/newsarticle.asp?articleID=46751284&type=headline&subject=headlines Tests Reveal Yushchenko's Dioxin Level Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko speaks to members of the media during a press conference in Kiev, in this Friday, Nov. 19, 2004 file photo. Confirmation that Yushchenko was disfigured by dioxin draws attention to suspicious cases in Russia in which poison may have been used to silence political foes and settle business scores. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File) LONDON (AP) New tests reveal the level of dioxin in the blood of Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko is more than 6,000 times higher than normal, according to the expert analyzing the samples. The concentration, about 100,000 units per gram of blood fat, is the second highest ever recorded, said Abraham Brouwer, professor of environmental toxicology at the Free University in Amsterdam, where blood samples taken last weekend in Vienna were sent for analysis.Tests Reveal Yushchenko's Dioxin Level ----------------------- VOTE PEOPLE .. . IT MEANS SOMETHING Rocket River
Slightly off topic, but if anybody wants to read a really cool "eco-thriller" written by a science fiction author that has a great deal of interesting and accurate information about dioxin-like polychlorinated byphenyls (dioxins are more appropriately known as polychlorinated dibenzodioxins) they should check out Zodiac by Neil Stephenson. It's a very quick read, interestingly engaging, and it is laced with quite a bit of very accurate information. These guys are particularly nasty because they are extremely lipid soluble and so they accumulate in fatty tissue which (as many of us know too well) are extremely difficult to get rid of. That having been said, given the extremely poor environmental history of the Soviet Union, and given the particularly decrepit state of the Ukraine, I don't find it completely beyond the pale to suggest that he could possibly have been exposed through some sort of natural environmental exposure, such as touring a factory as part of his campaigning. People who eat fish from the great lakes, for instance, have been found to have extremely elevated levels of dioxins, and PCB's even though these chemicals haven't been in manufacture commercially since the 1970's. The chemicals accumulated in water run-off and are taken up by the fish who spend years as a sort of time bomb waiting to go off. As a poison, however, doesn't seem particularly effective, given that the chloracne is so easy to diagnose, and while disruptive, it is not as disruptive as some other things (assuming you were seeking to avoid out and out murder.)
