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5 How Radiological Weapons Work
5.3 Other Types of Radiological Attacks
There are other ways to launch radiological attacks. Some methods are speculative,
others have been used already, albeit on a small scale—primarily adulterating food
and/or drink with radioactivity (e.g. [23]). The purpose of this would likely not be
to cause deaths so much as to frighten the public and cause them to lose confidence
in the safety of their food and water.
There have been a number of deliberate attacks against individuals involving
deliberate contamination and adding radioactivity to an individual’s food or drink in
an attempt to poison them (e.g. [15, 16]). Historically, this has happened primarily at
research institutions, largely opportunistically when a researcher or graduate student
becomes angry with a supervisor or co-worker. Part of the reason for this is that
many researchers and graduate students have ready access to small quantities of
radioactive materials in their laboratories and they are frequently under a great deal
of pressure—if tempers flare or if they feel singled out for ill treatment it is easy to
decide to slip some radioactivity into a person’s food or drink.
Luckily for those attacked in this manner the amount of radioactivity found in
most laboratories is not sufficient to cause radiation sickness or death; the person
attacked must undergo bioassay monitoring, but there is little (if any) risk In addition,
since these attacks are motivated by personal animus and not by a political agenda
these attacks fall into the category of assault rather than terrorism. The case of
Alexander Litvinenko, however, was different. Although this, too, was an attack
against a single person, it was politically motivated—and it was fatal. The details of
the Alexander Litvinenko assassination are fairly well-known; they are summarized
in the accompanying text box and more details can be found in both the popular and
the scientific literature (e.g. [8, 9]).
On a larger scale there is also concern that terrorist groups might seek to introduce
radioactive materials into the food or water supply [24]. As noted above, this would
very likely not cause harm or death to those exposed, but it could easily damage
the public’s confidence in their food and water. The National Council on Radiation
Protection and Measurements discussed this possibility briefly [14], including several
possible scenarios:
• Large-scale contamination of a municipal water supply
• Large-scale contamination of agricultural fields
• Large-scale contamination at one or more food processing facilities
• Small-scale contamination of food at the point of sale.
NCRP notes that an attack that deliberately targets the food and/or water supply
can spread contamination from the transportation and handling of contaminated
food and water and can expose individuals, possibly many individuals, to internal
contamination from ingestion of radioactivity. NCRP also noted that attacks that take
place further from the consumer—contamination of crops at a farm for example—
will likely affect more people than contamination of individual items or individual
sales locations (e.g. produce stands) closer to the consumer.
5 How Radiological Weapons Work
5.3 Other Types of Radiological Attacks
There are other ways to launch radiological attacks. Some methods are speculative,
others have been used already, albeit on a small scale—primarily adulterating food
and/or drink with radioactivity (e.g. [23]). The purpose of this would likely not be
to cause deaths so much as to frighten the public and cause them to lose confidence
in the safety of their food and water.
There have been a number of deliberate attacks against individuals involving
deliberate contamination and adding radioactivity to an individual’s food or drink in
an attempt to poison them (e.g. [15, 16]). Historically, this has happened primarily at
research institutions, largely opportunistically when a researcher or graduate student
becomes angry with a supervisor or co-worker. Part of the reason for this is that
many researchers and graduate students have ready access to small quantities of
radioactive materials in their laboratories and they are frequently under a great deal
of pressure—if tempers flare or if they feel singled out for ill treatment it is easy to
decide to slip some radioactivity into a person’s food or drink.
Luckily for those attacked in this manner the amount of radioactivity found in
most laboratories is not sufficient to cause radiation sickness or death; the person
attacked must undergo bioassay monitoring, but there is little (if any) risk In addition,
since these attacks are motivated by personal animus and not by a political agenda
these attacks fall into the category of assault rather than terrorism. The case of
Alexander Litvinenko, however, was different. Although this, too, was an attack
against a single person, it was politically motivated—and it was fatal. The details of
the Alexander Litvinenko assassination are fairly well-known; they are summarized
in the accompanying text box and more details can be found in both the popular and
the scientific literature (e.g. [8, 9]).
On a larger scale there is also concern that terrorist groups might seek to introduce
radioactive materials into the food or water supply [24]. As noted above, this would
very likely not cause harm or death to those exposed, but it could easily damage
the public’s confidence in their food and water. The National Council on Radiation
Protection and Measurements discussed this possibility briefly [14], including several
possible scenarios:
• Large-scale contamination of a municipal water supply
• Large-scale contamination of agricultural fields
• Large-scale contamination at one or more food processing facilities
• Small-scale contamination of food at the point of sale.
NCRP notes that an attack that deliberately targets the food and/or water supply
can spread contamination from the transportation and handling of contaminated
food and water and can expose individuals, possibly many individuals, to internal
contamination from ingestion of radioactivity. NCRP also noted that attacks that take
place further from the consumer—contamination of crops at a farm for example—
will likely affect more people than contamination of individual items or individual
sales locations (e.g. produce stands) closer to the consumer.