We do have to talk a bit about the news. But this is a science column, and godfuckingdamnit, I’m staying on topic. Kinda.
Today’s Moment of Science… Of course Putin isn’t a murderous fuckface. Sure. Uh-huh.
I’ve written about Agent Orange before, and that’s where our chemical romance begins today. In the 1940s chemical defoliants were the new cool toy for killing broadleaf weeds. Inevitably with new technology, for better or egregiously worse, someone will ask “can I use this to do a war?”
One of those defoliants was called 2,4-D, and as a former pesticide researcher I’ve worked with it. It was one component of Agent Orange, but not every component was equal in cuntbaggery magnitude (my new band name). The other defoliant in Agent Orange was 2,4,5-T, which in and of itself wasn’t the issue. However, a compound called TCDD was produced as a byproduct of its synthesis.
This contaminant, with a concentration of just 0.05-50ppm, was the reason why Agent Orange had such catastrophic effects. TCDD is a dioxin, a type of chemical that acts on receptors that regulate gene expression. This fuckery causes the activation or silencing of any number of genes. At lower exposure, it can slowly contribute to long term health issues, including cancer, neurological disorders, and birth defects.
At higher doses, hooboy.
After everyone figured out dioxins were bad, some evil fuck was inevitably going to ask “can I use this to do crimes?”
In 2004, Viktor Yushchenko was running for president of Ukraine as an independent. He’d already been the Prime Minister from 1999-2001 and now led an alliance of parties called Our Ukraine. He was running for the job against the prime minister at the time, Viktor Yanukovych.
Yanukovych was well known to be the “Kremlin’s man” in Ukraine. He had the machinery of Daddy Putin and his own corrupt government behind him. The election reportedly came to be seen less as Yanukovych vs Yushchenko and more as the government machine vs the people.
Yushchenko campaigned on a platform of fighting corruption, having friendlier relations with Europe, and even talked about joining NATO. Which all seems annoyingly familiar. He was popular, and so open and available to the people that a colleague remarked he was a “security nightmare.” Maybe stick a pin in that.
One of his staffers told him “I have no doubt that you’re going to win the election but I have a big doubt that the authorities will allow you to win the election honestly.”
After going to dinner with senior Ukrainian security officials on September 5th, that night Yushchenko came down with severe stomach pain, vomiting, headache, and the pain quickly spread through his whole body. The first diagnosis was food poisoning, which was… so close. He was transported a few days later to Vienna where they found swelling in his liver, pancreas, and intestines, along with severe ulcerations in his digestive tract.
Then the markings appeared on his face. It was a case of chloracne, often precipitated by dioxin.
Nobody had ever used dioxin for targeted poisoning before. Some experts thought the explanation was far-fetched, partially because of the sheer volume of dioxin it would take to poison someone like this. Some suggested his pockmarked face was the result of rosacea or stress. Mouthpieces for his opponent tried blaming bad sushi or too much alcohol.
Then his blood tests revealed that he had 50,000 times the amount of dioxin typically detected. And though he made himself available to a lot of people, random members of the public don’t have a couple milligrams of TCDD kicking around. But, hear me out, I’ve got a suspicion the Kremlin could.
Less than two weeks later on September 18th, he gave a two hour speech in front of a live crowd. He was visibly ill, sweating, and still dealing with temporary paralysis on one side of his face.
There was a military parade mere days before the first round of the election, Yanukovych standing shoulder to shoulder with Putin. The first round of elections led to a runoff between Yanukovych and Yushchenko. In the runoff, Putin congratulated Yanukovych on his victory before the results were in. Which was a tad suspicious.
There were major irregularities that all helped Yanukovych, and the people were not fucking having it.
In what became known as the Orange Revolution, Ukrainians took to the street to protest. A third vote was forced. This time, Yushchenko won honestly. The people were able to make him president in the face of the machine.
(There were some major disappointments in his presidency but let James Fell tell you that story).
In his September 18th speech, he’d said “You will not poison us. Because not individuals will show up. But tens of thousands and millions. You will not break us.”
This has been your Moment of Science, suggesting that every last Russian Warship can іди нахуй.
To get the MOS delivered to your inbox every weekday with only occasional (“occasional”) rants against creeping imperialism, head to patreon.com/scibabe.
Join the discussion!