IAEA reviews polonium risk after Litvinenko death

VIENNA, Dec 13 (Reuters) The International Atomic Energy Agency is reassessing its classification of polonium 210 as ''unlikely to be dangerous'' after exposure to the radioactive element killed an ex-Russian spy, a diplomat close to the UN watchdog said.

Alexander Litvenenko's November 23 poisoning death in London has sparked an international police inquiry and a diplomatic stir over his deathbed accusation that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered him killed. The Kremlin has denied involvement.

The diplomat familiar with IAEA operations said agency officials were reviewing polonium's designation as ''unlikely to be dangerous'', in category 4 on a five-tier list of radioactive sources where the first level is ''extremely dangerous''.

''There are informal discussions going on, appropriate in view of this incident and the related scare. No one had really focused on (the risk of) ingestion of polonium before,'' he said.

''This event has been kind of a wake-up call regarding the security of some radioactive sources.'' Litvinenko, who renounced his secret service career in 1998 and won asylum in Britain in 2000, was admitted to hospital on November 3 -- two days after meetings with several contacts -- with what was diagnosed as radiation poisoning caused by ingesting polonium 210.

His death was slow and painful.

FACT SHEET A European Union diplomat accredited to the IAEA said the Litvinenko poisoning may be taken up at the next meeting of a top IAEA advisory panel on nuclear safeguards in mid-February.

The IAEA has fielded inquiries from some member states about polonium since Litvinenko's poisoning.

A fact sheet put on the IAEA's Web site on Wednesday described polonium 210 as ''a highly radioactive and toxic element'' but something that could be ''stopped by a sheet of paper or the dead layer of outer skin on our bodies''.

It said ''Po-210'' could enter the body through eating and drinking of tainted food, breathing tainted air or via a wound.

Among roughly 520 incidents of illicit trafficking in radioactive substances reported to the IAEA since 2004, 14 included industrial polonium 210, three of them this year.

''The incidents involved the theft, loss or disposal of static eliminators and air ionizers containing sealed Po-210 sources.

Po-210 used in such sources is bound with other materials, and extraction would require some chemical treatment in a laboratory,'' the IAEA fact sheet said.

Polonium 210, naturally present in the environment in low concentrations, is commonly used in products, such as brushes, that eliminate static electricity.

It can be manufactured artificially via chemical processing of uranium ore, but only about 100 grams are produced a year, making polonium ''extremely rare'', the fact sheet added.

Reuters PDM RN2323