Can thallium kill?
In the Bond film Spectre, the bad guy Mr. White is poisoned with thallium, which makes him so sick that he ends up killing himself. Is the substance really that harmful?
Thallium is a metallic grey and soft element. It is absorbed through the skin, breathed via the air, or eaten with food. If it is not discovered in time, so that an antidote can be taken to eliminate its effect, the toxin is fatal.
Thallium ’sneaks’ into the body because its make-up is similar to that of potassium, and the cells of the body cannot always differentiate between the two. They absorb the toxin in the belief that it is the useful mineral potassium, which is good for blood pressure and fluid balance.
Once inside the cells, thallium interferes with proteins, important biochemical reactions and more. The first symptoms are relatively mild, showing after two days as nausea and diarrhoea.
After a few days, however, thallium begins to harm the nervous system, so that the victim suffers pain, cramps, numbness, psychosis and memory loss. Victims have spoken of a sensation of walking on hot coals. Two to three weeks later the hair falls out, and one week after that the heart may fail.
A lethal dose of thallium is about 1gram. Thallium’s slow effect makes it relatively easy for a killer to camouflage their actions, so the substance has been used as a subtle murder weapon. In 1960, a person connected with the French intelligence service murdered FélixRoland Moumié, a well-known anticolonialist from the newly independent former French colony of Cameroon.
An antidote against thallium can be given in the form of the ferrous pigment Prussian blue. Substantial daily doses of this can absorb thallium and effectively rinse it out of the body.