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The Oxford English Dictionary defines "poison" as "a substance that is capable of causing the illness or death of a living organism when introduced or absorbed." The legal definition of the term is "any product or substance that can harm someone if it is used in the wrong way, by the wrong person, or in the wrong amount." The medical condition of poisoning is even broader: It can be caused by substances that are not even legally required to carry the label "poison." Therefore, can food become poisonous? Of course it can if it is infected, tampered with or altered...

SAN JOSE (CBS SF) – The attorney for a 50-year-old woman accused of placing rubbing alcohol in two bottles of orange juice at a Starbucks in San Jose last month said Friday she is “delighted” that she will not face criminal charges. San Jose criminal lawyer Dennis Lempert said Ramineh “Romi” Behbehanian, who was suspended by her employer due to the case, “expressed her appreciation” to him. “We are gratified that my client’s position has been vindicated and it is unfortunate that people hysterically respond to a situation and caused damage to a highly qualified, innocent scientist who has done...

When children are desperate for attention they scream and cry, talk show hosts in need of attention make fun of Catholics. Actually "make fun" isn't the proper term. They hurl hate at Catholics with a smile on their face so they can accuse anyone who's offended of being humorless. Television host Bill Maher has long lost the power to shock because he's so consistently misinformed and hateful about religious people. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't take note of what is said by him and others like him. Sometimes when I write about anti-Catholic screeds from the media some see...

Complete Headline: Scores of TGI Fridays in New Jersey 'busted for selling caramel-colored rubbing alcohol as top-shelf scotch' in statewide crackdown dubbed Operation Swill At one bar, a mixture that included rubbing alcohol and caramel coloring was sold as scotch. In another, premium liquor bottles were refilled with water - and apparently not even clean water at that. State officials provided those new details Thursday on raids they conducted a day earlier as part of a yearlong investigation dubbed Operation Swill. Twenty-nine New Jersey bars and restaurants, including 13 TGI Fridays, were accused of substituting cheap booze - or...

If the shocking allegations contained in a lawsuit filed last Friday by responsible science advocate Steven Milloy are accurate, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a major scandal on its hands. As reported by the National Legal and Policy Center, Milloy initiated litigation in U.S. District Court in Virginia, based on evidence he accumulated via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). He alleges that the EPA engaged in disturbing experimentation that deliberately exposed human beings to airborne particulate matter the agency itself considers lethal. The experiments were conducted at EPA’s Human Studies Facility at the University of North Carolina in...

BELCHERTOWN (CBS) – Shortly after midnight Tuesday, seven people were caught trespassing at the Quabbin Reservoir. State Police say the five men and two women are from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore, and “cited their education and career interests” for being in the area. The men told police they were chemical engineers and recent college graduates.

<p>SAN JOSE -- A San Jose woman was arrested Monday night after she allegedly tried to sneak tainted bottles of orange juice into a display at a South San Jose coffee shop, police said.</p> <p>Ramineh Behbehanian, 50, was arrested on suspicion of the unusual crime of felony poisoning after hazardous materials technicians determined she had mixed rubbing alcohol and orange juice into bottles and placed them in a refrigerated display case at a Starbucks in the 6000 block of Snell Avenue.</p>

I was watching TV this evening and started to flip cable channels when I saw a streaming on MSNBC on our forces finding castor beans. The following is a part of what their website said about it. NBC News’ Jim Miklaszewski that within just the past week, U.S. investigators had found two shipping containers filled with millions of much more recent documents relating to chemical and biological weapons. One of the documents, from 2001, was titled “Document burial and U.N. activities in Iraq,” the sources said. It gave detailed instructions on how to hide materials and deceive U.N. weapons inspectors,...

REPORT: A Second Letter Sent To The US Senate Tests Positive For Poison Michael KelleyApril 17, 2013 A second letter sent to the U.S. Senate has tested positive for the poison ricin, according to Terry Moran of ABC News. Last night Poltiico reported that an envelope sent to an office of Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) tested positive for the deadly poison. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ricin is a poison naturally found in castor beans. It gets inside the cells of a person's body, preventing the cells from making any proteins. It can come in the...

Washington (CNN) -- An envelope that tested positive for the deadly poison ricin was intercepted Tuesday afternoon at the U.S. Capitol's off-site mail facility in Washington, congressional and law enforcement sources tell CNN.

LAURELVILLE, Ohio - The Hocking County Sheriff's office is trying to get to the bottom of who is responsible for drugging Laurelville Police Chief Mike Berkemeier. Berkemeier says the problem began Easter Sunday when he ate some cake sitting on his kitchen counter. ”I got up in the morning and ate it -- the entire thing,” he said.

COSTA MESA [California] (CBSLA.com) — Several students at an Orange County middle school were sickened Wednesday after eating pot brownies. Firefighters were sent to TeWinkle Intermediate School on California Avenue in Costa Mesa around 12:45 p.m. Newport-Mesa Unified School District officials said five seventh-graders went to the school’s nurse and complained of stomach aches. Other classmates confessed those students ingested brownies laced with marijuana, according to Sky9’s Gil Leyvas. Three children were transported to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach as a precaution. Their conditions are unknown. Two other kids went home with their parents. Costa Mesa police later...

The British government sought on Tuesday to limit the information it would disclose at a planned inquest into the death of Alexander V. Litvinenko, a former officer in the K.G.B. who succumbed to radiation poisoning in London more than six years ago. The coroner hearing the case said that it may now be postponed. “Due to the complexity of the investigation which necessarily precedes the hearings,” the coroner, Sir Robert Owen, said, “it may not be possible to adhere” to the planned May 1 start date for the hearings. The inquest would be the first — and probably the only...

Urooj Khan had sworn off playing the lottery after he took an Islamic pilgrimage to the Middle East in 2010, but as he stood in a 7-Eleven near his home on Chicago's Far North Side this summer, he lost his will for a moment, handing over $60 to buy two instant-game tickets. After scratching off the second ticket, he leaped in the air, shouting over and over again, "I hit a million!" When Khan, 46, accepted an oversized check from Illinois Lottery representatives days later at the same store with his wife and teenage daughter at his side, he spoke...

The latest estimates say that the Assad regime has hundreds of tons of mustard gas, a blister agent, and large stockpiles of sarin and possibly VX, both of which are nerve agents -- all of which can be launched by Scud missiles, artillery, or aircraft, according to Charles Blair, a specialist in chemical and biological weapons at the Federation of American Scientists. "I've heard that Syria has 100 to 200 missiles with nerve agents loaded and ready to go, but that seems extreme," said Blair, noting that the nerve agents are usually stored separately from the weapons and that exact...

CARLSTADT- A former employee at a Carlstadt chemical plant allegedly attempted to poison a coworker's coffee with an antifreeze ingredient and sprayed acid on her coat, Carlstadt Police said.

A 33-year-old Pennsylvania woman could spend the rest of her life in prison after admitting to police that she repeatedly poisoned her boyfriend with Visine eye drops for more than three years in a bid for his attention. Vickie Jo Mills of Ayr Township, Pa., was arrested Thursday and charged with 10 counts of aggravated assault, 10 counts of simple assault and 10 counts of reckless endangerment after she told authorities she slipped Visine eye drops into the drinking water of her boyfriend, 45-year-old Thurman Edgar Nesbitt III. Mills, who has a child with Nesbitt, told Pennsylvania State Police she...

Just six months after issuing its latest warning about chicken jerky dog treats made in China, the Food and Drug Administration confirms it has logged more than 900 complaints from pet owners who say their dogs either were sickened or died after eating the treats. The number of complaints has nearly doubled since the story was first reported by ABC News in March. The FDA says its investigation is ongoing and that it continues to test samples of the popular treats, which dog owners across the country say have caused kidney failure in their pets, resulting in severe illness or...

Buddhist leader believes Chinese agents may have trained fake female followers to kill him when seeking blessingsThe Dalai Lama has revealed he fears Chinese agents have trained bogus female devotees to kill him with poison while seeking blessings. The Tibetan Buddhist leader told the Sunday Telegraph that he had been passed reports from inside Tibet warning of the plot, using Tibetan women. The 76-year-old Nobel laureate said he now lives in a high security cordon in his temple palace grounds in Dharamsala, in the Himalayan foothills, on the advice of Indian security officials. His aides had not been able to...

FORT LAUDERDALE— A resident on Wednesday called some thieves "stupid" for breaking into his home while it was tented for fumigation. "They're obviously not very smart to go inside a house full of poison," said T.V. Sagnella, who lives in the burglarized two-story home in the 400 block of Southwest 18th Avenue. "I wouldn't kill myself for an Xbox."

" Monsanto's pesticides contaminated the farmers' non-tobacco crops, water wells and streams meant for family use, exposing their families to the toxic substances, the farmer say."

An explosion on Monday rocked the suburban Atlanta home of a man known for his fight to keep chickens on his property, and emergency officials say a body was found inside. Marshals had been on the scene for about two hours trying to evict Andrew Wordes, who's known as the "Chicken Man," when the explosion happened around 12:45 p.m., said Antonio Johnson of the Fulton County marshal's office. Minutes before the explosion, Wordes told them to leave the property that was in foreclosure. Other than the body found inside the house, which officials did not immediately identify, no one was...

ROMNEY CAMPAIGN DRAGGED DOWN BY BIG BOATLOAD OF DELEGATESRead More » March 7, 2012   Mitt Romney won more than twice as many delegates on Super Tuesday as Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum. The Non-Fox Media's take-away is that Romney suffered a major setback Tuesday night.      No matter what happens, Barack Obama's boosters in the NFM portray it as a debilitating blow to Romney. On Nov. 7, The New York Times' headline will be: "Romney ekes out narrow electoral victory, leaving race uncertain."      To explain the widening gulf in delegates won by Romney compared to the others...

Reports surfaced yesterday that in the past two weeks over 400 new cases of animals being poisoned after eating treats manufactured in China have been received by the FDA, strengthening demands from pet owners that a recall be placed into effect. On Sunday, Senator Sherrod Brown held a news conference on the heels of a previous one the week before at the Ohio Humane Society in Hilliard Ohio about tainted chicken jerky treats from China. It was Brown’s second public statement to the Food and Drug Administration regarding the treats that are reported to have been causing illness and death...

With Newt Gingrich breaking out of the pack as the conservative alternative to front-runner Mitt Romney in South Carolina, he came under attack Friday from an old friend and colleague in Congress, former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. Santorum had largely avoided political attacks against Gingrich, whom he once considered a political mentor. But on Friday, the glove came off as Santorum took the former House speaker to task for being insufficiently conservative on climate change, free markets and health care. "Conservative alternatives don't go out and attack the capitalist system as he has done. Conservative alternatives don't promote...

Poisoned cat-meat stew is suspected to have been used to kill a billionaire in southern China. Police have detained a local official in Guangdong province in connection with the sudden death of Long Liyuan on 23 December. The official, Huang Guang, is suspected of adding a toxic plant to the stew at a restaurant where they were eating. A police statement said the two were involved in a dispute after Mr Huang allegedly embezzled money from Mr Long. Mr Huang, an agriculture official in Bajia, took Mr Long, who ran a forestry company, to visit a piece of woodland on...

Natalya Murakhver, a New York food writer and mother of an 18-month year old daughter, loved her premium brand orange juice -- the "100 percent pure" and "not from concentrate" kind that comes in the colorful carton and tastes consistently delicious. That is, until she said she learned from her first-time moms group that there's a "secret ingredient" in all premium orange juices that companies are not required to put on their labeling. Now, after writing Whole Foods, she refuses to buy her favorite, "365" juice, amid uncertainty about its contents. "One of the moms said she had read about...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=840uysdm924 Peter Schiff slices and dices Obama's bogus speech in Kansas.

Chicken jerky treats may be to blame for dozens of new reports of mysterious illnesses and some deaths in dogs, prompting a renewed warning for pet owners by the Food and Drug Administration. At least 70 dogs have been sickened so far this year after reportedly eating chicken jerky products imported from China, FDA officials said. That’s up from 54 reports of illness in 2010. Some of the dogs have died, according to the anecdotal reports from pet owners and veterinarians. FDA officials say they have not been able to find a cause for the illnesses. Extensive chemical and microbiological...

MADRID: An Al-Qaeda suspect plotted to poison tourists’ water supplies to avenge the killing of Osama bin Laden, a Spanish judge said Saturday as he remanded the man in custody. Abdellatif Aoulad Chiba, a 36-year-old Moroccan, had gone so far as to obtain manuals on poisons, toxins and explosives on jihadist websites, the judge said. Police swooped soon after the suspect appeared to be saying farewell to his wife. Chiba’s online comments on jihadist websites “expressed a clear desire to carry out an attack against ‘infidels’ by poisoning human water supplies”, he said in a written ruling. The online comments...

A McHenry County man has pleaded guilty to obtaining a deadly puffer-fish poison for use as a weapon. Authorities say Edward F. Bachner IV wanted to use it to kill his wife and collect on a $20 million insurance policy.

The Chinese government has sentenced Gao Yanjun, a butcher from the northern city of Jinzhou, to life in prison -- and four others to up to 15 years in prison -- for illegally adding poisonous, industrial-grade nitrates to meat products they sold, in order to enhance their color and texture

GOP: Pelosi 'A Potent Poison'Published on May 21, 2011 by Staff Reporter WASHINGTON, D.C. (USA) OfficialWire News Bureau Although Democrat Nancy Pelosi is no longer House speaker she is still "a potent poison" and the focal point in many Republican attack ads, an official said. Pelosi lost her position as speaker in January but National Republican Congressional Committee members see her as a divisive figure and potential threat should the Democrats take back the House, Politico reported Friday. "She's still a potent poison in the minds of Republican and independent voters. I can't imagine they want her back as speaker....

SNIPPET: "RIYADH: A suicide bomber lightly wounded a senior prince largely credited for Saudi Arabia's anti-terrorism campaign when he blew himself up just before going into a gathering of well-wishers for the Muslim holy month of Ramazan, the state news agency said Friday. It was the first known assassination attempt against a member of the royal family since Saudi Arabia began its crackdown on al-Qaeda affiliated militants eight years ago following the September 11 terror attacks in the United States." SNIPPET: "It said the prince, who is the son of Interior Minister Prince Nayef, was discharged from the hospital and...

LAS VEGAS -- An unemployed graphic designer who told investigators that he found making ricin an "exotic idea" pleaded guilty Monday to possessing the deadly toxin in a hotel room here. Roger Bergendorff, 57, also pleaded guilty to a federal weapons charge. (A second weapons charge was dropped.) He could face up to 20 years in prison at his Nov. 3 sentencing, though prosecutors are recommending that he serve a little more than three years. Bergendorff reportedly fantasized about harming people with the poison -- he had sketched an "injection delivery device" disguised as a pen -- but never carried...

Are Americans being deliberately poisoned by the United States Government? As far-fetched as that may sound, evidence is clearly mounting that would indicate that there is an insidious plot underway that threatens the health of every man, woman and child living in America. In two stories that have floated under the radar for the last couple of years, Congress and health authorities have been working together to pass laws that would sicken the populace and perhaps endanger their very lives. First, there was the Energy Independence and Security Act, passed by Congress in 2007, a provision of which made it...

YANKTON, S.D. (KTIV) -- It's happened in places like Louisiana, Arkansas and Kentucky. Hundreds of birds mysteriously found dead. Folks in Yankton, South Dakota, thought they were being added to the list after hundreds of dead birds were found there on Monday. Turns out the unpleasant feathered discovery has a solid explanation. They were poisoned. Some had thought 200 starlings found dead in Yankton's Riverside park had frozen to death. But they were actually poisoned on purpose, by the US Department of Agriculture. Many of the European Starlings discovered by a passerby, were laying on the ground or frozen in...

An environmental group that analyzed the drinking water in 35 cities across the United States, including Bethesda and Washington, found that most contained hexavalent chromium, a probable carcinogen that was made famous by the film "Erin Brockovich." The study, which will be released Monday by the Environmental Working Group, is the first nationwide analysis of hexavalent chromium in drinking water to be made public.

WASHINGTON — In most administrations, "leaks" of classified information precipitate presidential ire. Nearly all such unauthorized disclosures are the consequence of disgruntled government employees deciding that a "leak" is the best way to stop some activity they have decided should not continue. To justify their unlawful actions, they call themselves "secret whistle-blowers." The so-called "mainstream media" love them. Most American presidents do not. That's what makes the current commander in chief's reactions to a whole series of "leaks" so unusual. President Barack Obama doesn't seem to be concerned at all. President Ronald Reagan was infuriated by the publication and broadcast...

Don't eat the seafood and stay out of the Gulf! This is one of many independent testing reports on the Gulf's condition as it relates to human life.

Any culture’s religious ceremonies can seem strange to outsiders: For example, take the indigenous Zoque people of southern Mexico. To ask their gods for bountiful rains during the growing season they head to a sulfur cave where molly fish swim in the subterranean lake. They then toss in leaf bundles that contain a paste made from the mashed-up root of the Barbasco plant, which has a powerful anesthetic effect. When the stunned fish–which the Zoque people consider a gift from underworld gods–go belly-up, people scoop them from the water and bring them home for supper. This fishy protein helps them...

Kim Jensen of Laguna Beach, CA recently discovered that her cat had become violently ill from chewing on the carcass of a gopher that had been poisoned by her neighbor’s rodent repellent. Jensen is suing the city for $950.25 in vet bills because she claims her neighbor, Bill Martinez took the poison, which is city property, “for his personal use.” In an article by Claudia Koerner in the Orange County Register, Jensen explains her actions, saying, “‘The city needs to be responsible for its employees,’ Jensen said, adding it stings that her tax dollars may have in part funded the...

Girl attacked in 2008 acid throwing, determined to get education. Family in danger from relatives of acid throwers. Afghan girls attending the Totia Girls School in Kabul were attacked with an unidentified poisonous gas. The spokesman for the education ministry, Asif Nang, said that it was part of a series of attacks against schoolgirls. "We were in our classroom when I smelt a bad smell. Our teacher walked outside the class to find out whether the smell is just in our classroom or everywhere at school," Farida, a 12-year-old schoolgirl being treated at the local hospital, said. "When she found...

THREE EMPLOYEES OF US EMBASSY IN FRANCE BEING TREATED FOR POISONING AFTER OPENING MAIL - POLICE

This .. I know is an odd question and I couldn't figure out exactly how or where to post it so-o-o "You Won"! 8) A lot of folks DO look upon squirrels as a pest but I kinda get a kick out of watching them. I have never seen a squirrel eat a back-yard mushroom .. until today! I don't know what kind of mushroom this would be but I guess that it is the typical, growing over buried, dead wood type that grows in forested areas. (my home is in a 'forest') I walked around looking for a 'dead...

Bret Michaels has suffered what doctors call a "warning stroke," or a transient ischemic attack, according to his Web site. The rocker, 47 -- who is still recovering from a brain hemorrhage -- was "readmitted to the hospital this week after suffering numbness on the left side of his body, predominately his face and hands," according to a statement posted on his site. While undergoing tests -- including an MRI and CT scan -- doctors also discovered he has a hole in his heart.

BELLINGHAM, Wash. - If the April 1 death of a Tacoma woman was due to hemlock poisoning, it would be the first such fatality in 11 years in the state, the Washington Poison Center said. Sakha Keo, 55, apparently put hemlock in a salad she ate, thinking it was something else, said Annie Waisanen, a Pierce County medical investigator.

In her new memoir, former first lady Laura Bush writes that she, her husband and the American delegation may have been poisoned at the 2007 G-8 summit hosted by Germany. German federal investigators as well as the kitchen staff at the Grand Hotel Heiligendamm refute her account. Steffen Duckhorn still remembers well the day Laura Bush thought she might die. He was feeling a bit worked up because he had heard that President George W. Bush, who was attending the G-8 summit in June 2007 in Heiligendamm, Germany, wasn't feeling well. Duckhorn had cooked for the president, and Bush was...

The former first lady Laura Bush has opened a diplomatic can of worms by writing in her new book that she and her husband may have been poisoned during a state visit to a G8 summit in Germany in 2007. The passage of Spoken From the Heart in which she discusses the incident amounts to the first time that the idea has been floated that George Bush's illness at the summit may have been the result of poisoning. The then US president succumbed to a stomach complaint, as did his wife and several members of their entourage, during a three-day...

Bret Michaels's health has taken a turn for the worse, PEOPLE has learned: After an excruciating headache late Thursday night, the star was rushed to an undisclosed hospital where doctors discovered he suffered a massive subarachnoid hemorrhage (bleeding at the base of his brain stem), according to a source close to the situation. Michaels, 47, is currently in critical condition. "After several CAT scans, MRIs and an angiogram, [doctors] decided to keep Michaels in the ICU and are running several tests to determine the cause. [It] will be touch and go for the next few days while he is under...