Crimes involving radioactive substances
Johannes M. was convicted of attempting to poison his ex-wife in 2001 with plutonium stolen from WAK (Wiederaufbereitungsanlage Karlsruhe), a small scale reprocessing plant where he worked.
[7] On 21 September 2012, a story was posted in various UK newspapers suggesting the existence of an ongoing cover-up by the British Government over the material facts of the case.
[citation needed] The report suggests that many aspects of the case may "never see the light of day" due to the significant risk to UK/Russian relations and the implications of the declaration that an act of nuclear terrorism took place on British soil.
Thereafter, Silkwood and two other co-workers personally associated with her (roommate Sherri Ellis and boyfriend Drew Stephens) would be tested at Los Alamos National Laboratory; while the latter two only tested positive for insignificant amounts of plutonium exposure, Silkwood was found to have 6–7 nanocuries (220–260 Bq) of plutonium-239 in her lungs, though researcher Dr. George Voelz insisted that this amount was still negligible and non-harmful.
Later posthumous measurements taken after Silkwood's death under separate but likewise controversial circumstances were shown to be roughly consistent with the initial findings described by Dr. Voelz, but also indicated that she had somehow ingested plutonium prior to her demise.
Allegations that Silkwood's exposure to plutonium-239 was a deliberate act of radiation poisoning are fueled by the fact that she was in possession of potentially compromising evidence that linked Kerr-McGee with egregious safety violations, encompassing unsafe workplace conditions at the plant, faulty manufacture of fuel rod components that posed a potential public safety risk, and even substantial missing plutonium supplies that were unaccounted for; Silkwood also contended that she had evidence that photographs containing evidence of hairline cracks in the fuel rods may have been doctored by company personnel as a cover-up.
[13] After a 1971 divorce involving limited visitation rights, a Texas man, Kerry Andrus Crocker,[14] deliberately exposed his 11-year old son to radiological material with the intent to harm.
In 1973, the boy was diagnosed with radiation necrosis with "deep indolent ulceration", a dead tendon, and two irreparably damaged testicles caused by the exposures.
After the fall of the Socialist Republic of Romania, files released indicated that the secret police, Securitate, had intentionally induced cancer in striking miners.
[citation needed] Similarly, some anti-Castro activists claim that the Cuban secret police sometimes used radioactive isotopes to induce cancer in "adversaries they wished to destroy with as little notice as possible".
These radium elixirs were marketed similarly to the way opioids were peddled to the masses with laudanum an age earlier, and electrical cure-alls during the same time period such as the Prostate Warmer.
