Freeing the world from chemical weapons

Dawn Sturgess’ death near Salisbury, UK, in 2018 was an unusual and scary chemical weapon incident. She died after being exposed to an agent known as ‘Novichok’. The same substance also seriously injured her partner Charlie Rowley, former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

The incident ‘was a serious violation’ of an international law known as the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), explains University of Leeds toxicologist Alastair Hay. The UK has released evidence implicating Russian spies, Alastair says. ‘Of course, Russia denies getting involved,’ he adds. Alastair is an advisor to the international Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), based in The Hague, Netherlands, which is determined to abolish such weapons. But Novichok was a new problem for the organisation, which chemists solved.