Attack Of The IUM's

The Russian's seem to be using a tag-team approach to poisoning people. First it was Polonium and *tag* now it's Thallium.

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Two American women who were hospitalized in Moscow earlier this week with possible thallium poisoning were in fair but stable condition Thursday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, the hospital said.

Marina Kovalevsky, 42, and her daughter Yanna, 26, were released Wednesday from the Sklifosovsky Clinic in Moscow. Thallium is a colorless, odorless and tasteless metal which, even ingested in small amounts, can be deadly, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Both Kovalevsky's were born in Russia and escaped emigrated to the US in 1989. They go back to Mother Russia on a regular basis and flew there in mid-February to attend a wedding. Then they were poisoned. Yanna and her mother were released from the hospital and returned to Los Angeles yesterday (Wednesday). The mother is a physician.

Moscow's top public health doctor, Nikolai Filatov, said thallium poisoning had been confirmed, according to the RIA-Novosti news agency.

Thallium is fatal in amounts as low as one gram. Thallium is used in many ways, but never as a condiment. Except in Russia.

Saddam Hussein used it to kill his rivals and thallium was first suspected as the poison used to murder former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko.

UPDATE

And the FBI has decided to take a look into this. There is a possibility that they were poisoned prior to leaving the US to fly to Russia.