Polonium subjects were chosen because experimenters wanted persons who had not been exposed to polonium either through work or accident. All subjects had incurable diseases. Excretion of polonium was followed, and an autopsy was conducted at that time on the deceased patient to determine which organs absorbed the polonium. Patients' ages ranged from 'early thirties' to 'early forties'. The experiments were described in Chapter 3 of Biological Studies with Polonium, Radium, and Plutonium, National Nuclear Energy Series, Volume VI-3, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1950. Not specified is the isotope under study, but at the time polonium-210 was the most readily available polonium
Polonium "natural environmental origin". Following later Russian tests, Vladimir Uiba, the head of the Russian Federal Medical and Biological Agency, stated in December 2013 that Arafat died of natural causes, and they had no plans to conduct further tests. It has been suggested that chelation agents, such as British Anti-Lewisite (dimercaprol), can be used to decontaminate humans. In one experiment, rats were given a fatal dose of 1.45 MBq/kg (8.7 ng/kg) of Po; all untreated rats were dead after 44 days, but 90% of the rats treated with the chelation agent HOEtTTC remained alive for 5 months. Polonium-210 may be quantified