Popular fear of radioactivepoisoning and difficulty of understanding and explaining the science seem to compel congenitally cautious politicians and bureaucrats to punishingly restrictive policies and regulations.
Also 230, 000 doses of iodine have been distributed to evacuation centers as a first line of defense against airborne radioactivepoisoning of the thyroid, a common concern in these situations.
Alexander Litvinenko, a renegade Russian security officer living in London, was killed by poisoning with polonium, a rare radioactive substance, in 2006.
On that day Litvinenko fell sick, suffering (it eventually turned out) the effects of poisoning by polonium, a rare radioactive substance that killed him three weeks later.