Russian resident Vladimir Putin reportedly has a special team of agents who retrieve his excrement wherever he travels in his bid to avoid revealing any secrets about his health.
Amidst reports that Putin is suffering from cancer, the Russian leader does not seem to be willing to allow foreign intelligence the opportunity to get some insight about his health by analysing his waste.
According to French news magazine Paris Match, a special team from the Federal Protection Service is picking up Putin’s excrement before disposing it back in Russia.
As associate professor of biosensing and diagnostics at University of the West of England Bristol, Ben de Lacy Costello, told the New York Post, his waste could reveal whether he is suffering from cancer.
“If he was on chemotherapy then it may show up,” Costello said.
“Depending on what kind of drug it was and how it was metabolised by the liver and the excretion pathway.”
Stalin’s special toilet
Soviet prime minister Joseph Stalin is believed to have ordered for a special toilet to be built before Chinese chairman Mao Zedong’s trip to the Soviet Union. This way, Stalin managed to obtain waste sample which were analysed by experts.
The United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is also said to have done something similar during the visits of Russian leader Milkhail Gorbachev and current Ugandan dictator Yoweri Museveni.
If you were paranoid and didn’t want to take a chance, I’d probably say, ‘Yes’, someone could glean some kind of health information from stool,” added Costello.
“Stool can be assessed in terms of colour, consistency, quantity, shape, odour, etc., to indicate disease states.”
