A man with five lives

According to the BBC, A contact of Alexander Litvinenko who tested positive for the same substance found in the Russian’s body has shown no evidence of “radiation toxicity”.

Mario Scaramella is doing well and showing no signs of illness due to polonium-210.

That said, it was reported at lunchtime that he’d received “five times the lethal dose” of this radioactive element.

Five times the lethal dose? Presumably, that’s enough ²¹⁰Po to kill five people, so how come he’s not been affected.

Perhaps they meant to say “five times the safe dose”? Who knows? Typical of the BBC to be frank. It would be nice if their non-science journalists could occasionally ask their science journalists just to check over the facts and figures before they blurt out such statements…