$10m to kill Litvinenko?

The Times has an article which states that Litvinenko’s killers used polonium worth $10m to give massive overdose.

It goes on to say:

“… said that as a single unit costed about $69, it would take at least 15,000 orders, costing more than $10 million, to kill someone.”

but 69 x 15,000 = 1,035,000

That’s a shade over one million, not ten.

How to explain this discepancy?

a. the price is wrong
b. the quantity is wrong
c. the maths is wrong
or
d. an order = 10 units

Actually it doesn’t really matter which, what matters is that The Times at best lacks clarity over the core fact in a story.

Even assuming the best case that they forgot to mention an order was for 10 units, Tim Worstall explains why it still wouldn’t cost anywhere near $10 million.

Okay, so maybe I’m just being picky but things like that leap out at me and scream “how can you have any faith in the rest of the article if they can’t exlpain this bit clearly?”…

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