Letters to Obama Contained Ricin

The FBI has launched a hunt for the person responsible for sending letters laced with the deadly poison ricin to President Obama and a Mississippi senator. 

The Secret Service said that the letters, which were both intercepted at a mail screening facility in Maryland on Tuesday, contained a 'suspicious substance' which was later confirmed to be ricin, a toxic component derived from castor beans and can be fatal when ingested.

The mailings to Obama and Wicker were related, based on the postmarks and the identical language of the enclosed letters, according to an FBI operations bulletin reviewed by Reuters.

The letters included the phrase, "To see a wrong and not expose it, is to become a silent partner to its continuance," and were signed, "I am KC and I approve this message."

The envelopes both bore postmarks from Memphis, Tennessee, and were dated April 8. Memphis Mayor A.C. Wharton pointed out in a statement, however, that this does not mean the letters originated in that city.

An aide to Wharton explained that many areas near Memphis also are included in its postmark - including some in neighboring northern Mississippi, Wicker's state.

For Washingtonians, the situation was unsettlingly reminiscent of events of nearly 12 years ago. Then letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to the Washington offices of two senators and to media outlets in New York and Florida, not long after the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington.

The FBI said White House operations were not affected by the latest scare. It noted that filters at a second government mail screening facility had "preliminarily tested positive for ricin this morning" and mail from that facility was also being tested.

What is Ricin?

Ricin is a toxic substance that can be produced easily and cheaply from castor beans. As little as 500 micrograms, an amount the size of the head of a pin, can kill an adult. There is no test for exposure and no antidote.The beans can be safely made in to castor oil, but ricin is a part of the waste 'mash' from the oil production. It can be made into a powder, a mist or a pellet and is poisonous if inhaled, injected, or ingested. 

Ricin gets inside the cells of a person’s body and prevents the cells from making proteins they need. Without the proteins, cells die. It can cause respiratory, gastrointestinal and circulatory symptoms and can lead to death 36 to 72 hours after exposure. Chewing the beans can also release the harmful substance. 

The speed of its effect depends on the means of exposure. There is no antidote.

The drug was popularly referenced in AMC's cult show, 'Breaking Bad.' Protagonist Walter White poisons a small child with the substance, placing the blame on another character.

 

Experts say it is more effective for use against individuals than as a weapon of mass destruction.

Ricin was used in the 1978 assassination of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov. The author, who had defected nine years earlier, was jabbed by the tip of an umbrella while awaiting a bus in London and died four days later.But Dr. Eric Toner of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center told NBC News that he doubted a sophisticated ricin had been used - and that a homemade batch would be unlikely to make anyone ill.

'It is not actually clear you can get anybody sick from ricin-containing letters,' he said, adding it needed to be ingested or injected.

'It is easy to make some ricin. You get some castor beans, make it in your kitchen, you can produce a batch of stuff that has some ricin in it. It is not very pure. It is not very potent. As near as we can tell it has never actually made anyone sick.' (CDC)

(sources : http://www.dailymail.co.uk, www.reuters.com, http://edition.cnn.com)