The Truth About Ricin

No. I am not going to detail the production of ricin from the seeds of the Castor plant. This information is only provided to illustrate the difficulty that confronts law enforcement personnel attempting to solve the ricin incident that made headlines earlier this week.

I think that the biggest mis-conception is that only the Castor seed is toxic. This is not so. ALL parts of the plant are toxic in varying degrees, with the seeds being the most toxic. A very good defense mechanism.

First a few bits about toxicity and availability.

Toxicity:

Cornell has a detailed page concerning the mechanistic properties of ricin poisoning.(my apologies to anyone that hasn't taken a college level biology course)

Ricin's LD₅₀( lethal dose responsible for killing 50 percent of the test population) is 30 mcg/kg when administered via ingestion, inhalation or injection. This level of toxicity places ricin in the upper echelon of biotoxins. Because of the extremely low dosage level required to cause death, ricin is unlikely to be detected in a single poisoning. In a larger event, where a more exhaustive search for a causative agent is done, it is likely that some detection of ricin will be found.

Availability:

Ricin is amongst the most widely available highly potent toxin available to a criminal/terrorist. Since the Castor plant can be grown in most climes, and is found in the wild, the seeds are readily available.

On a commercial scale, Castor seeds are produced in excess of a million tons annually. This makes ricin potentially the most common of all potent toxins. It is, by mass many times deadlier than nerve gas for instance..yes, even VX.

Extraction Process:

As stated above, I am not going to detail the production of ricin from the Castor bean. I will, however, VERY roughly outline the steps involved.

This procedure, as well as much of the above information has been verified as accurate by a good friend, and biochemist. He currently serves as laboratory director for a major New England toxicology concern.

Rather than starting from Castor bean 'mash,' this process starts with the seed. FYI, the 'mash' contains roughly 5% toxic material -- ricin and RCA (Ricinus communis agglutinin).

The Castor beans are first ground and pressed to remove most of the oil. The pressed cake still retains about 15% of the oil and further extraction via solvents can reduce the oil content of the cake to ~1%.

After the oil has been removed, the pressed cake is extracted by agitating with water.

Following extraction, the slurry is filtered using one of two methods. Both of these are common laboratory procedures.

The filtrate from the water extraction method is treated with a salt solution to precipitate the proteins.

Following precipitation, the filter cake may be dried and slurried to separate the proteins.

That's all I am willing to post. The odds of someone guessing the missing chemicals invoved, temperatures and PHs is infinitesimally small.

To make ricin in a form that would be inhalable requires a relatively sophisticated process, as it is a mechanical process, and the ricin molecule is broken down by the heat generated by ordinary grinding methods.

Terrorism Potential:

This stuff is so commonly available, that if ricin was to be a major agent of bio-terrorists, it would, most likely, have been widely used by now. There have been a handful of incidents involving ricin. It remains a concern. The most likely use would be as a food or liquid contaminant.

If a terror agent was to aerosolize ricin, it could be dispersed by a conventional bomb. This would only physically impact those in the immediate area. Although it is likely that the psychological impact would be perceived as greater than the real threat.

Now you are far more educated than the talking heads, and I would bet the venerated NYT reporter, Judith Miller as to the use and abuse of ricin.

And that my faithful readers, is the truth about ricin.

If you have a question that I find reasonable, I'll answer it when I review my reader comments.

That's not pure bs.