[Semper911]

I gather fried dough sticks taste something like rat poison.

How exactly does water from a poisoned well get into fried dough? I know the dough must be made with water, but there would have to be an incredible concentration of rat poison in that water to cause people to keel over like that. Is it possible that powdered rat poison got into the flour used to make the dough?

They never really said that the water was confirmed to contain the poison, but they did say that the water supply was "cleared" the next day. I find it hard to believe that if the water supply was the source, they would let people use it just a day or two later.

Also, who knows what chemical caused symptoms like that -- instant bleeding from the mouth and nose and sudden death? As I recall, rat poison is (or was) arsnic (sp?). Are those the symptoms of arsnic poisoning? Any Docs or chemists out there?

[L,TOWM]

Arsenic does not produce such symptoms, unless it is in fantastically high concentrations. It will cause hemoraging, doing most of its damage by blowing out the capillaries in the liver, kidneys, and other organs, breaking them down. The immediate bleeding and massive hemoraging reported does not sound like arsenic to me, unless it was mass quantities of the mineral taken all at once.

Quick and efficient are descriptions NOT usually associated with arsenic as a poison.

[Tazlo]

Also, who knows what chemical caused symptoms like that -- instant bleeding from the mouth and nose and sudden death? As I recall, rat poison is (or was) arsenic.

Or it could be warfarin (heparin).

[Pearls Before Swine]

As I recall, rat poison is (or was) arsnic (sp?).

Arsenic is slow. So is thallium, which is very deadly and also a rat poison (now banned). Saddam is reported to have experimented with that. The rat poison I have heard of more recently is warfarin, which is an anticoagulant. That would be consistent with rapid action and bleeding.