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Worrying
I just turned on the tv to "breaking news" that 6 men were arrested earlier in London carrying "Ricin"

Quote:
The symptoms of human poisoning begin within a few hours of ingestion.

The symptoms are:


abdominal pain
vomiting
diarrhea, sometimes bloody.
Within several days there is:


severe dehydration,
a decrease in urine,
and a decrease in blood pressure.
If death has not occurred in 3-5 days, the victim usually recovers. It is advisable to keep children away from the castor bean plant or necklaces made with its seeds. In fact donít even have them in or around a house with small children. If they ingest the leaves or swallow the seeds, they may get poisoned. The highly toxic seeds beaded into necklaces, cause skin irritation at the contact point.

If the seed is swallowed without chewing, and there is no damage to the seed coat, it will most likely pass harmlessly through the digestive tract. However, if it is chewed or broken and then swallowed, the ricin toxin will be absorbed by the intestines.

It is said that just one seed can kill a child. Children are more sensitive than adults to fluid loss due to vomiting and diarrhea, and can quickly become severely dehydrated and die.

Castor bean plants in a garden should not be allowed to flower and seed.
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Re: [Paul] Worrying In reply to
That's not worrying, that's damn scary.

There is no known antidote for Ricin. It doesn't take much to kill you...just 1 to 10 mg per kg of body weight.

I hope they roll up all involved and recover all the material - for your sake and for the sake of my friends around London.
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Re: [ArmyAirForces] Worrying In reply to
>>
just 1 to 10 mg per kg of body weight.
<<

Apparently it is just 1mg in total, or at least that's what the guy on tv said.
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Re: [Paul] Worrying In reply to
Pretty serious stuff.

Let's hope your avatar does not foreshadow anything untoward.
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Re: [ArmyAirForces] Worrying In reply to
Nor yours :)
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Re: [Paul] Worrying In reply to
Well it did help win a war side-by-side with British Lancasters, and their brave crews, when they saved England & Occupied Europe some 60 years ago.

It's a happy image to most in East Anglia Wink
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Re: [Paul] Worrying In reply to
Piece in the NY Times today says that investigators are exploring a theory that the ricin was going to be used to poison British troops at an unspecified UK military base.

Requires registration:

http://www.nytimes.com/...l/europe/24TERR.html
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Re: [ArmyAirForces] Worrying In reply to
Did you hear about the 16 arrests in Madrid today?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/..._eu/spain_al_qaida_4
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Re: [Paul] Worrying In reply to
I did. It looks pretty clear that the allies have made some very deep penetrations into the Al Qaeda network, and that with time, or as needs dictate, are able to roll up significant segments of their operation.

Despite a lot of the rhetoric, I'd say our various governments are working pretty closely cross borders on these issues.

-scott