Why Ricin?
By Simon Sole
1 Dec 2002
The media has so far missed the most curious aspect of the Ricin discovery: Ricin is a disappearing poison, and very difficult to detect on autopsy. Thus, it is useful to assassins who want to kill covertly but it is not so useful in any other role, although easy to produce. Nor it is a communicable disease. In aerosol form it would require four tons to poison as many people as 1 kg of anthrax. It must also be injected into the body to work well. Ingestion is effective, but not particularly efficient. So, asks Simon Sole, who wants to kill who covertly - and why?
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1 Dec 2002
The media has so far missed the most curious aspect of the Ricin discovery: Ricin is a disappearing poison, and very difficult to detect on autopsy. Thus, it is useful to assassins who want to kill covertly but it is not so useful in any other role, although easy to produce. Nor it is a communicable disease. In aerosol form it would require four tons to poison as many people as 1 kg of anthrax. It must also be injected into the body to work well. Ingestion is effective, but not particularly efficient. So, asks Simon Sole, who wants to kill who covertly - and why?
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