RICIN TOXIN FOUND IN LAS VEGAS HOTEL

A toxin called ricin just turned up in a Las Vegas motel, according to preliminary tests. It’s probably not terrorism-related, the Associated Press reports, but it’s plenty scary anyway. Seven people were taken to the hospital as a precaution.

When it’s injected, ricin is “one of the most toxic substances known,” Stata Norton, University of Kansas professor emeritus and expert in toxic plants, tells the Health Blog. The poison interferes with RNA and blocks the body’s ability to make protein. “If you can’t synthesize protein, you’re dead,” Norton says.

As an added toxic bonus, there’s no antidote. “Once you’ve got it in the cell, we don’t know how to get it out,” Norton says.

Ricin is made from castor beans (Latin name, Ricinus communis), which were found in the room along with a powdery substance believed to be ricin, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports. “They’re quite pretty seeds as a matter of fact,” Norton says of the beans (pictured).

A healthy adult could probably eat several castor beans without dying, Norton said, because the toxin is largely broken down in the intestines. Inhaling ricin powder would be more toxic. Injection is worse still, as evidenced by the case of Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian journalist killed in London in 1978. The murder weapon was an umbrella that, according to the CDC, “had been rigged to inject a poison ricin pellet under Markov’s skin.”


Ricin Found in Las Vegas Hotel Room; Man in Hospital (Update5)

Fear and Ricin in Las Vegas

Ricin Possibly Found at Las Vegas Motel

Ricin Found in Las Vegas, Gil Grissom Unavailble for Comment