Posted on 01/07/2003 7:56:41 AM PST by Rick.Donaldson
Breaking News.. Live on CNN just now.
Seven individuals have been arrested in London who had some quantity of highly dangerous poison. The second commentator stated the poison is "ricin".
Ricin is a poison that is extracted from castor beans and is extremely deadly. A pin-head amount can kill a full grown human.
Rick Donaldson
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Rick Donaldson
Anomalies Network Admin
Colorado Springs
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http://survival.anomalies.net
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Illegitimus non carborundum.
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"The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything." -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
One molecule of ricin is enough to kill a cell, which is why it's so potent a poison.
If you get enough ricin (and it doesn't take much), so many cells in your body die that you croak within 24-72 hours due to your organs failing because they can't go on functioning when a goodly proportion of their cells are dead (impairing function) and rotting (adding toxic overload to the strain).
In this respect, the mechanism of death is similar to fatal doses of radiation or virulent viral infections, both of which kill by mass "cell assassination".
Let me guess. These six dudes don't have names like Nigel, Cyril, Dee, Colin, etc.
In the early hours of 5 January, six men of north African origin and one woman were arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 at premises in North and East London by officers from the Metropolitan Police Anti -Terrorist Branch.
Our message is still 'alert not alarm'
Dr Pat Troop, Deputy Chief Medical Officer
|
The six men, aged in their late teens, 20s and 30s, remain in custody and are being interviewed by Anti-Terrorist Branch officers.
The woman has since been released.
The arrests follow a joint operation between the Anti-Terrorist Branch, MPS Special Branch and the Security Service, and followed intelligence passed to officers.
A quantity of material and items of equipment were found at a residential address in Wood Green, north London, where one of the men was arrested.
Police say forensic analysis of the Wood Green address is currently being carried out.
Toxic material
Ricin, which comes from the castor bean, is considered a likely biowarfare or bioterrorist agent and is on the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention's "B" list of agents - considered a moderate threat.
It is relatively easy to manufacture in small amounts but would be considered an unusual agent to use for a mass attack as it must be ingested or injected to take effect.
It could have been produced by amateurs in very small quantities
Sir Timothy Garden, former assistant chief of defence staff
|
Large quantities were reportedly found in caves in Afghanistan.
It was also the toxin thought to have been used to murder dissident Bulgarian Georgi Markov, who was stabbed on Waterloo Bridge in London with a poisoned umbrella in 1978.
Referring to the threat still posed by international terrorism, Prime Minister Tony Blair told an audience of diplomats in London: "The arrests that were made earlier today [Tuesday] show this danger is present and real and with us now and its potential is huge."
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Pat Troop said: "We have previously said London, and indeed the rest of the UK, continues to face a range of terrorist threats from a number of different groups.
"And while our message is still 'alert not alarm', we would re-iterate our earlier appeals for the public to remain vigilant and aware and report anything suspicious to police."
Sir Timothy Garden, former assistant chief of defence staff assessed the likely threat.
"It depends very much on the quantities one's talking about," he told BBC News 24.
"It could have been produced by amateurs in very small quantities.
"If it's a significant quantity then it's a worry because this is a poisonous agent which would require a lot of work to produce in a major quantity for use by terrorists."
Tests continuing
The material has been analysed at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratories at Porton Down in Wiltshire.
A small amount of the material recovered from the Wood Green address tested positive for the presence of ricin.
Mr Troop said: "Our primary concern is the safety of the public and the police have worked closely with the Department of Health throughout.
"Tests were carried out on the material and it was confirmed this [Tuesday] morning that toxic material was present.
"The department is now alerting the health service, including primary care, about these developments.
"It is also ensuring that the Health Service is able to provide advice to the public, including through NHS Direct."
That depends on what you mean by "wide-scale". I agree that it would be impractical to kill 10,000 people this way, but you could do a bang-up job of killing just about everyone in an enclosed space like an airliner or a moderately sized building (via aerosol), or everyone who was fed from a given food source (via powder in the food).
Because symptoms don't start showing for several hours after ingestion, no one would notice anything was amiss until everyone had finished eating, even if the eating is done in shifts as at a mess hall. Think of all the corporate and government buildings which feed most of their occupants in a given day via a large cafeteria.
"Ingestion" in this case includes breathing it in.
How, exactly, is this "PC?"
North Africa isn't the Middle East, btw.
Also, the population of North Africa is an admixture of Arabs and Berbers.
1. You have to get it physically inside someone's body
2. Despite the fervent hopes of much of FR, there really are very few people as a % of population inclined to terrorism, even among Arabs and Muslims.
Q&A: What is ricin? Traces of the highly toxic poison ricin have been found in a north London house. BBC News Online looks at what ricin is. What is ricin? Ricin is a toxic material which can be fatal when inhaled, ingested or - most dangerously - injected. It is easily produced, and can be extracted from the beans of the castor oil plant. It can damage the organs, and a combination of pulmonary, liver, renal and immunological failure can lead to death, although people can recover from exposure. How potent is it? Just one milligram of ricin is enough to kill. However, terrorism expert Professor Paul Wilkinson told the BBC that it was not possible to cause huge numbers of casualties by simply spraying the substance into the air. Is there any treatment? There is currently no antidote to the poison, though scientists are working on a vaccine. If someone is affected, doctors can only treat their symptoms. How would someone know they were affected? The first symptoms depend on how the person has been exposed to ricin but can include fever, stomach upsets and coughing. If someone breaths the poison in, they could suffer serious lung damage. If ricin gets into the digestive system, it can lead to irritation of the gut, gastroenteritis, bloody diarrhoea and vomiting. It can also affect the central nervous system, and cause seizures. These effects may not become evident until some hours after the person has been exposed to the poison. Has it been used before? Traces of ricin have been found in caves in Afghanistan. The poison was also used to kill Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov by using a specially-equipped umbrella to inject a pellet coated with 450 micrograms of ricin into his leg in an infamous attack on London's Waterloo Bridge in 1978. Does ricin have any positive benefits? Ricin is being studied to see if it could form the basis of cancer treatments because it can kill cells easily. |
See also:
07 Jan 03 | UK
12 Sep 02 | Health
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False positive (as was the case with the Microsoft "Anthrax Attack") is always a possibility.
Don't be silly, it was the guy in the bowler, not Mary Poppins.
Now you're being ridiculous. I guarantee that the suspects are ethnic Arab Muslims from the Maghreb.
Could be. There are several North African countries. I know Egypt is also in North Africa. And Somalia.
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