Poisoning one’s political rivals has a long history. In 399 B.C., an Athenian court found Socrates guilty of “impiety and the corruption of youth” and ordered him to drink a fatal dose of hemlock.
In 338 and 336 B.C., in Persia, Artaxerxes III and IV were poisoned by their vizier Bagoas, who was, in turn, poisoned by Darius III. In 71 B.C., Xu Pingjun, Empress of the Western Han dynasty, was poisoned by a rival with aconitum, an herbaceous plant extract used for poisoned spears.
According to Josephus Flavius, Antipater the Idumaean, father of Herod the Great, was poisoned by rivals in 43 B.C. Jumping ahead a few centuries, in 1521, Juan Ponce de Leon was killed by an arrowhead dipped in the sap of the manchineel tree. In 1682, after a five-year inquiry into the mysterious deaths of prominent members of French King Louis XIV’s court, 36 people including one of Louis’s mistresses, were executed for poisoning enemies and rivals.
In 2011, an English businessman named Neil Heywood was found dead in a Chongqing hotel room. He was given cyanide by Gu Kailai, wife of prominent Chinese Communist Party official, Bo Xilai, with whom Heywood had dealings. In 2017, Kim Jong-Nam, half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, was assassinated by two attractive women who walked up to him in the Kuala Lumpur airport and rubbed the nerve agent VX onto his face.
And the list goes on.
Interestingly, a surprising proportion of poisonings involve the Russians.
In 1453, Dmitry Yurievich Shemyaka was poisoned with arsenic whilst eating a chicken dinner (not chicken Kyiv). In 1916, Russian courtiers, including one of the nephews of Tsar Nicholas II, attempted to poison Grigori Rasputin, advisor to Tsarina Alexandra, with cyanide-laced tea cakes and wine. They were unsuccessful, shot Rasputin, and dumped his body in the Malaya Neva river.
In 1936, 1938, and 1940, Nestor Lakova, an Abkhaz leader, Abram Aronovich Slutsky, head of the Soviet spy service, and Nikolai Konstantinovich Koltsov, a geneticist and as such an enemy of Trofim Lysenko, one of Stalin’s favorite charlatans, were poisoned by Lavrenti Beria of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs.
And things get more creative.
In 1959, Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist, was assassinated by the KGB, using a cyanide gas-emitting pistol. In 1978, Bulgarian dissident/defector Georgi Markov was jabbed in the leg with a ricin-tipped umbrella by a stranger whilst walking on London’s Waterloo Bridge. Markov died soon thereafter. Authorities suspect the KGB.
Political assassins used diverse poisons—arsenic, tree bark, dioxin, ricin, polonium-210, and Novichok—to eliminate political rivals.
In 2004, Ukrainian opposition leader and Russia critic Viktor Yushchenko fell ill during his campaign for president. A physical exam suggested dioxin poisoning.
In 2006, in a case in which I was involved, former KGB agent and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko died of radiation poisoning after taking tea containing polonium-210 at the London Millennium Hotel Pine Bar. (I recommend Clarridge’s to be on the safe side). A 2016 British inquiry ruled the murder was “probably” committed by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB).
In 2018, former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were found unconscious on a park bench in Salisbury, England, having been poisoned with Novichok, a weapons-grade anti-cholinesterase nerve agent developed by the Soviet military.
In 2022, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich and two associates claimed to have been poisoned because of their involvement in negotiations over resolving the war in Ukraine.
As these episodes show, political assassins used diverse poisons—arsenic, tree bark, dioxin, ricin, polonium-210, and Novichok—to eliminate political rivals. Delivery routes were also creative: poisoned tea, cakes, chicken, umbrellas, and the like.
But now, we come to a new and exciting poisoning route: underwear.
I found no report of poisoning via underwear despite extensive searches of PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library. Perhaps I’m naïve to think underwear assassins would publish their accomplishments in the biomedical literature, but I tried. I could also not find anything in a Google search.
On Aug. 20, 2020, Russian political opposition leader Alexei Navalny was hospitalized in the city of Omsk after becoming acutely ill on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow. Soon thereafter, he was transferred to Charité hospital in Berlin.
Most data suggest FSB agents entered his hotel room in Tomsk and sprinkled his underwear with a new form of Novichok. The German Bundeswehr (Federal Defense) and several laboratories associated with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons confirmed the presence of a new Novichok derivative in blood and urine samples.1 Of considerable interest was detecting the agent on skin, suggesting the exposure route was via clothing. Contaminated underwear is suspected as the most likely source. Details of Navalny’s hospitalization and recovery are reported in the Lancet.3
The Russian government vehemently denied involvement in the Navalny poisoning and accused the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.
But now, we come to a new and exciting poisoning route: underwear.
This denial is reminiscent of a comment by Mandy Rice-Davies, who was interviewed in the Marylebone Magistrates Court during the Profumo affair, a British sex scandal of 1963. Asked about Lord Astor’s denial that he and Ms. Rice-Davies had an affair, she replied: “Well, he would, wouldn’t he?” Her response is termed Mandy Rice-Davies applies and is used to point out that the subject of an accusation is not a reliable source when denying said accusation because it’s obviously in their own interests to deny it, regardless of whether that denial is true.
It’s difficult to imagine why the CIA would want to assassinate Navalny, not that the agency is above assassinating terrorists or cooperating with non-U.S. groups to assassinate political leaders. I found no evidence of the poisoning of a politician or anyone else. However, my search turned up several planned poisonings, mostly involving Fidel Castro. These included poisoned, exploding cigars, poisoned pills hidden in a cold cream jar (did Fidel use cold cream?), explosive-laced mollusks, and a custom-made, fungus-infected, diving suit. However, none of these plots was executed; nor was Mr. Castro.
Fortunately, Navalny recovered from the Novichok poisoning, but had long-term health sequelae. He voluntarily returned to Russia in early 2021 and was immediately imprisoned, ironically, for violating his parole whilst in the German hospital. He was later accused and convicted of several crimes, including embezzlement and contempt of court, and sentenced to more than 30 years imprisonment.
After stays in several Siberian prisons, he was transferred to the IK-3 special regime colony known as “Polar Wolf.” On Feb. 16, 2024, the Federal Penitentiary Service announced Navalny died at the prison. Sergey Naryshkin, head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service said Navalny died of “natural causes.” This reminds me of the story of when the first Duke of Wellington (Arthur Wellesley), then the most famous man in England, was walking in Mayfair and was greeted by a passerby who remarked: “Mr. Smith, I believe.” Wellington responded: “Sir, if you believe that, you will believe anything.”
But the latest revelation is even more amazing. Last month, several European governments and the European Union announced that traces of epibatidine, a potent neurotoxin, were found in autopsy samples, including blood, from Navalny, and that this poisoning most likely caused his death. They accused the Russian Federation of orchestrating Navalny’s death.
Epibatidine can be isolated from skins of Anthony’s and Phantasmal poison dart frogs, which are found predominately in Ecuador and Peru. These toxins can also be chemically synthesized.
These frogs make epibatidine by eating certain foods and insects, and producing alkaloids which accumulate in their skin. (Frogs raised in the laboratory cannot make epibatidine). Epibatidine acts on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the nervous system resulting in respiratory paralysis; death from anoxia ensues. For context, epibatidine is about 200-fold more powerful compared with morphine.
The questions arise: How can we protect political dissidents from underwear assassins and from poison dart frogs?
The most obvious is to avoid being perceived of as an enemy by evil people (difficult for a dissident in Russia). What about the underwear plot? A quick solution is don’t wear underwear.
If this is unacceptable, how about next-generation Calvin Klein underwear with a sensor to detect chemicals other than those in Tide laundry detergent? And, of course, one could start locking up their underwear at night or when not in use. Most hotels have in room safes, but the management often has a master key. What about disposable underwear? You would need to keep replacements with you (leaving replacements in the room would defeat the whole purpose).
Avoiding the frog poison dart is trickier. One should, of course, not wander about in jungles in Ecuador or Peru and avoid angering members of indigenous tribes. Also, avoid eating “cuisses de grenouille” when in France unless the server tries them first.
But, there is no easy way to prevent someone from injecting you with chemically synthesized epibatidine. You could, of course, walk around with an attendant, a mechanical respirator, and a power pack. Or you could carry vials of atropine and an oxime reactivator like pralidoxime, just in case.
And I suggest avoiding English pubs where dart games are popular.
Putting humor aside, the assassination of Alexei Navalny is tragic. He was the best hope for reforms in Russia. The bungled attempt to kill him is reminiscent of the assassination of Rasputin. There is an old saying: “Nothing has changed in Russia since Ivan the Terrible.”
Let’s hope it’s not true.
The questions arise: How can we protect political dissidents from underwear assassins and from poison dart frogs?
Readers will surely wonder why an article on nerve gas wielding underwear assassins is appearing in The Cancer Letter. There is a connection. During World War I, the Germans used chemical warfare, including mustard gas. So did the British and French, but only after the Germans.
Chemical warfare was banned by the Geneva Protocol in 1925, but at the start of World War II, there was concern it might be re-introduced. To prepare, the U.S. military secretly shipped a cargo of mustard gas bombs to Bari, Italy, aboard the SS John Harvey.
On Dec. 2, 1943, a German air raid sank the Harvey, releasing the bombs into the sea injuring and killing more than 1000 people. Stewart Alexander, an Army officer and expert in chemical warfare, was sent to investigate.
In a secret document, he reported injuries and deaths he observed resembled changes he’d seen in rabbits injected with nitrogen mustard, especially severe bone marrow suppression. Presciently, he suggested the bombing released mustard gas, which killed rapidly dividing cells, especially lymphocytes, and might be useful to treat some cancers.[2]
Fearing that the Germans might use details of the disaster as an excuse to use chemical weapons, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to suppress Alexander’s report.
Hitler was exposed to chemical weapons in WWI, which may have led to his reluctance to use them in WWII, but he and his collaborators had no compunction about using Zyklon B gas to kill millions, including Jews, Catholic priests, communists, homosexuals, disabled persons, and Roma.
In 1942, Louis Goodman and Alfred Gilman at Yale developed a derivative of mustard gas, nitrogen mustard. Based on Alexander’s report, to which they were privy, they reasoned that their agent could be used to treat lymphomas. In 1942, after successful experiments in mice, they collaborated with Gustaf Lindskog to treat a man with a non-Hodgkin lymphoma with mustine (mechlorethamine, HN2).
There was a dramatic, albeit transient, response.
In 1946, they reported data using mustard derivatives in lymphomas and other cancers.4 And, as is the case with the underwear assassins, the rest is history.
Ironically, the newest mustard derivative, bendamustine, was developed in Jena, in the German Democratic Republic, now the same country where Navalny was treated for Novichok poisoning.
And the story is unending. Recently, the U.S. accused Russia of using chloropicrin, a chemical agent widely used during World War I, in the war in Ukraine. We await convincing evidence to demonstrate that this is so.
References
- OPCW Issues Report on Technical Assistance Requested by Germany”. Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. 6 October 2020. Archived from the original 6 October 2020. Retrieved 2 May 2024.
- FOI confirms German results on Novichok”.Swedish Defence Research Agency. 15 September 2020. Archived from the original 21 December 2020. Retrieved 2 May 2024.
- Steindl D, Boehmerle W, Körner R, Praeger D, Haug M, Nee J, Schreiber A, Scheibe F, Demin K, Jacoby P, Tauber R, Hartwig S, Endres M, Eckardt KU. Novichok nerve agent poisoning. Lancet. 2021 Jan 16;397(10270):249-252. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32644-1. Epub 2020 Dec 23. PMID: 33357496.
- Goodman LS, Wintrobe MM, Dameshek W, Goodman MJ, Gilman A, McLennan MT. 1946. Nitrogen mustard therapy. Use of methyl-bis(beta-chloroethyl)amine hydrochloride and tris(beta-chloroethyl)amine hydrochloride for Hodgkin’s (sic) disease, lymphosarcoma, leukemia and certain allied and miscellaneous disorders”. JAMA. 132:126–13.
