Ricin is not as dangerous as the media makes it out to be

A buddy of mine writes about the dangers of Ricin

Howdy.

AAAGHHH!!!!!!! 'Ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we go! Waa Ork!

>LONDON (AP) -- Anti-terrorist police said Tuesday they arrested six men of North African origin

Specifically ALGERIAN, just like Zacarias "chrome dome" Moussaoui. Hey, wait! Does that mean the cops were "profiling"? Foul! Let 'em go, and supply them with 1,000 pounds of castor beans!

>after finding traces of ricin, a deadly poison that in the past has been linked to al-Qaeda and Iraq, in a London property.

Oh God! Now we link ricin to al-Qaeda and Iraq, do we? Why the hell would Iraq need a wimpy poison like ricin, when they have tabun, sarin, and all sorts of nasty biological weapons?

> Ricin -- one of the world's deadliest toxins, twice as deadly as cobra venom -- is derived from the castor bean plant and is relatively easily made. It may be inhaled, ingested or injected. There is no known antidote.

OK, just a friggin' minute. Yeah, it's "deadly" and there's no known antidote. HOWEVER: according to R.H. Dreisbach, writing in the "Handbook of Poisons" (1955), the fatality rate is roughly 5%. Yes, you read that correctly. Five percent.

Injection is the most lethal method, as ingestion tends to lead to the toxin - an albumen (protein) being largely destroyed in the digestive tract.

Whereas there is no antidote, let me quote Torald Sollman from "A Manual of Pharmacology" (1924) yes, you read the date correctly. 1924. This stuff has been known for a VERY long time.

"Antiricin- Injections of the phytotoxins produce typical antitoxins, so that an immunized animal can survive 5,000 ordinary, fatal doses of ricin. Some of the basic work of Ehrlich was done with ricin and abrin (N.B: the similar toxin found in rosary beans). He showed (1891) that the immunity starts in five to six days, and lasts six or seven months. The resistance of the corpuscles is unchanged, the antiricin being contained in the pseudoglobulin fraction of the serum (Jacoby, 1902). It contains antitoxin, antiagglutinin (probably identical) and precipitin. Madsac and Walburn found that this combination obeys the same laws as diphtheria antitoxin. The toxicity of ricin is modified rather complexly by lecithin. (Lawrow, 1913)."

OK, a person who is "immunized", per se, would have to ingest 175mg of the stuff before it killed him. Injection IS bad news, but inhalation is far less lethal, and ingestion is WAY tougher. Ingestion and injection lead to acute poisoning, but inhalation tends to lead to chronic poisoning, for which Dreisman recommends, by way of treatment, and I quote: "Remove from exposure".

> Police did not say what the material was. “Tests were carried out on the material and it was confirmed this morning that toxic material was present," said the statement.

Ok, so how the hell do they know what it was?

> It said Britain "continues to face a range of terrorist threats from a number of different groups" and advised the public to "remain vigilant."

Pray tell; How does one "remain vigilant" in today's Britain without running afoul of some "hate crime" law?

> In very small doses, ricin causes the human digestive tract to convulse -- hence the laxative effect of castor oil.

Except that only *traces* of ricin are found in castor oil.

> But in larger doses ricin causes diarrhea so severe that victims can die of shock, as a result of massive fluid and electrolyte loss.

Well, that's an oversimplification, too. The main damage is caused by the agglutination of blood-cells, circulatory collapse, nephritis and renal shutdown.

>Castor beans are grown all over the world.

Aggh! We must stamp out all traces of R. Communis, as well as rosary beans (abrin) and croton (crotin)!

> Traces of ricin have been found by U.S. troops in Afghanistan at suspected al-Qaida biological weapons sites.

*Traces*. My guess is they decided that it WAS TOO INEFFICIENT to use as a weapon of mass destruction. They may be a bunch of ass-scratching, camel-riding zealots, but apparently they can READ, and have availed themselves of the medical literature going back to 1886.

Hell, they're probably rather sharp. It doesn't take much to realize that even a minor threat such as this would cause an absolute PANIC in the namby-pamby, soft, sensitive and fear-mongering western media. They've probably observed that a typical western newspaper concerns itself more with "feelings" and social theories than with facts.

I was writing these guys off as dirtbags. They might actually be better, more intelligent and more analytical men than we are.

> U.S. officials said in August that the Islamic extremist group Ansar al-Islam tested ricin along with other chemical and biological agents in northern Iraq, territory controlled by Kurds, not Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The group is allegedly linked to al-Qaida.

Whoa, Nellie! "Tested"? There is ABUNDANT medical literature on ricin, dating back to AT LEAST 1886. This is NOT some newfangled bio/chem weapon. DAMNIT! Leave it to the media to make a mountain out of a molehill. Somebody, please tell me: WHY do I rely on such pitifully uninformed idiots for information?

> And some amateur scientists have produced the poison at home. In Janesville, Wis., Thomas Leahy was accused of manufacturing ricin, and prosecutors said the small amount he possessed was enough to kill more than 100 people. He pleaded guilty to possessing the poison.

That's what I was afraid of. You'd better rip those castor beans out of your yard right now, ditto your rosary beans, if you have 'em. Now about the botulism that lives in your soil - I don't know what to tell you. There's probably enough there to kill a few thousand people, so I guess we'd better confiscate all land, illegalize stringbeans, and force people to live in dirigibles or something. If you're a stock-raiser, there's probably enough potassium and ammonium nitrate in your soil to put you on the "terrorist" list, too.

> In Spokane, Wash., the FBI arrested Kenneth Olsen last summer for allegedly manufacturing the poison, a charge he denies.

Cattle involuntarily manufacture E. coli all the time. Shall we imprison them all? Hey, the stuff is dangerous! Might as well be on the safe side, right? Every time you piss, you're passing the raw components for an explosive out through your urethra. What if you piss at a refinery? Does that make you a terrorist?

Instead of soiling our diapers and squealing about a toxin that's been known for well over 100 years and has a 5% fatality rate, why not worry about these al-Qaeda a-holes getting a hold of the Ebola virus (95% fatality rate), and known to crop up in Sudan (remember the aspirin factory incident?) They once hosted Usama (and might have an axe to grind) or some REAL threat?

I guess the Brits are well and rightly f-ed, but if you're an American, be of good cheer! Our new Senate Majority leader is an M.D.! Simply refer him to the Sollman and Dreisbach articles I cited, and DEMAND that the gub'mint start cooking up large batches of antiricin.

Jeez. Color me terrified. So I'll steer clear of shady-looking Arabs with hypodermics in hand...

Love,

Disgusted D--

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