Thread by @timtron2020

@dankaszeta omitted significant facts and distorted aspects of the #Skripal case in his recent talk for @edskeptics, as I will show in this thread.

Kaszeta's talk is here. It's over an hour long but I'll give ~time reference points with my remarks.

1/25

Kaszeta blocked me on Twitter long ago.

This was after I asked him how it was possible that two people as physically different as Sergei and Yulia #Skripal could be *almost simultaneously overcome* by the effects of a nerve agent they had allegedly touched hours before.

2/25

After I blocked Kaszeta back (as I do with all who block me) he tried to claim I'd blocked him first!

That's the self-described "king of nerve agent Twitter".

Ah well.

Apart from listening to his @edskeptics talk, I also looked at his book, 'Toxic'.

Let's get started.

3/25

Kaszeta omits the critical fact that after the #Skripal poisoning, then-PM Theresa May told MPs that the Russian state might not have been directly responsible for the attack.

Investigative journalist @Bynickdavies explains how significant this is:

4/25

Kaszeta omits the "duck feed" from his map/timeline of what happened to the #Skripals. This was when Sergei and Yulia fed ducks on the River Avon with some local boys.

It happened shortly after they were allegedly exposed to #novichok by touching the poisoned door handle.

5/25

Kaszeta's map/timeline is not of his own creation, even though he presents it as "a reconstruction of the [#Skripals'] itinerary" (~10min 25s).

Kaszeta has simply taken the map from an article published by The Daily Mail online.

6/25

Kaszeta is aware of the duck feed because he mentions it in his book (p235). But there as in his talk he omits the fact that the duck feed led to huge nerve agent contamination, with the boys who were given bread by the #Skripals hospitalised, and ducks killed by #novichok.

7/25

Well, that was the story that then-deputy CIA director Gina Haspel told then-POTUS Trump to persuade him to expel 60 Russian diplomats from the US.

It was a complete lie, but it had the desired effect.

Kaszeta says Haspel and then-PM Theresa May were friends (~36min).

8/25

Kaszeta also omits the cemetery visit the #Skripals made on the morning of the day they were poisoned.

In his book he claims this never happened and they "stayed in the house" that morning (p235).

But officers later went to investigate the cemetery wearing hazmat suits.

9/25

At ~20min 30s Kaszeta suggests that the small dose of atropine that may have been given to the #Skripals by paramedics due to supposed low heart rate (bradycardia) fortuitously saved their lives because atropine also happens to be the "antidote" for nerve agent poisoning.

10/25

Kaszeta omits the fact that atropine doses are carefully controlled because atropine is itself toxic.

Repeated, high doses must be swiftly administered to treat nerve agent poisoning, followed by treatment for atropine toxicity. Only low doses are given for bradycardia.

11/25

Kaszeta's fellow "chemical weapons expert" Hamish de Bretton-Gordon knows very high doses of atropine would be needed for the #Skripals to survive. The Mail published an extract from his book 'Chemical Warrior' where he claims they were injected 30+ times in hospital.

12/25

But like the photos of dead ducks and injured children, Bretton-Gordon's claim is false.

Sarah Clark, the senior ICU nurse at Salisbury hospital when the #Skripals were admitted, told the BBC there was no early suspicion of nerve agent poisoning.

13/25

Knowing - as did de Bretton-Gordon - that swift treatment is essential in cases of nerve agent poisoning, Kaszeta claims (~10min 40s) that “quite quickly it was determined at the hospital that [the #Skripals] were suffering from something called organophosphate poisoning".

14/25

But this is another false claim. Lorna Wilkinson, the hospital's director of nursing, told the BBC it wasn't until "the Tuesday" that "various tests and diagnostics" showed a "cholinesterase inhibition" and therefore "what did we deduce from that".

15/25

Wilkinson's statement to the BBC that it wasn't until "the Tuesday" that organophosphate poisoning began to be suspected by the hospital means it was more than 24h before heavy doses of atropine were even considered for the #Skripals (remember, atropine is itself toxic).

16/25

Kaszeta himself says (~37min 40s) that atropine would "hurt the #Skripals" if it was given to them without an organophosphate toxin or nerve agent present in their systems.

Atropine is not given in large doses as a matter of course in the initial stages of generic care.

17/25

Kaszeta also says (~33min 30s): "If you get it [nerve agent] on your skin, it’s literally up to a day before you die."

But this is what allegedly happened to the #Skripals.

Enough nerve agent entered their blood for them to be incapacitated, with no diagnosis for 24h+.

18/25

Kaszeta misrepresents atropine as an antidote to organophosphates. Atropine is a *treatment* that must be administered rapidly to prevent lasting injury or death. Charlie Rowley allegedly received an experimental #novichok antidote (though it seems Dawn Sturgess did not).

19/25

Kaszeta mocks the Russians for publishing alternative theories about what happened to the #Skripals, as if this is somehow evidence of guilt.

Twice (~32min 40s & 41min 30s) he mocks the 'Zvezda' outlet for suggesting the #novichok was delivered by "a very small drone".

20/25

But Kaszeta omits the fact that the "novichok drone" theory originally came not from Russia but from MI5, according to the UK popular press.

The UK came up with many alternative early theories: eg the #novichok was put in #Skripal's cereal, or the air vents of his BMW.

21/25

As Kaszeta says (~28min) these theories "can't all be true". But he ignores the fact that none of them could be true.

He concedes the "#novichok perfume bottle" supposedly found in #Salisbury was very unlikely to be the weapon used in the #Skripal attack. (~58min 40s).

22/25

There are many other omissions/distortions in Kaszeta's #Skripal talk but I'll end with this.

As he says (~1h 03min) "the fact there were two of them [#Skripals] - different in age - [affected by #novichok] really does kick off a couple of different layers of suspicion".

23/25

As Kaszeta says in his book 'Toxic' (p266) with "skin absorption of nerve agents... there is a wide variance of onset of symptoms... due to the fact that skin [and subcutaneous fat] thicknesses vary". This may explain the delay between the Skripals' exposure and symptoms.

24/25

But it is Kaszeta making the same point he blocked me for making: two people as physiologically different as Sergei & Yulia #Skripal would not experience a near-simultaneous onset of effects.

Yet we know this happened because neither could raise the alarm for the other.

25/25

https://twitter.com/timtron2020/status/1426879791630888963?s=19