FBI issues nationwide warning on ricin toxin
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Your support makes all the difference.The FBI yesterday issued a nationwide alert about ricin days after the arrest in London of seven men allegedly connected with an Algerian extremist group and the discovery of a small amount of the poison in their flat.
The Bureau contacted 17,000 law-enforcement officials, and provided advice and information on how to handle ricin and warning how the deadly toxin might be used in a terror attack.
"Use of ricin toxin as a weapon would be most effective in an assassination by injection or as a food contaminant," the bulletin said. "Ricin could be used in a terrorist operation to contaminate closed ventilation systems such as heaters or air conditioners, drinking water, lakes, rivers and food supplies."
It said that ricin can be made in liquid, crystal or dry powder form and that in low doses, it has a laxative rather than lethal effect. But it warned that if inhaled or ingested, serious symptoms such as fever, cough, shortness of breath, chest tightness and low blood pressure are expected within eight hours. Death can come between 36 and 72 hours.
There have been a small number of cases in the US that involved the use or near-use of ricin, the bulletin said. But officials said they no information to suggest that a ricin attack was planned against any US target. The seven men held in London are still being questioned.
£ Britain's biggest chain of garden centres has stopped selling castor plant seeds from which ricin can be extracted. Plants and seeds are off the shelves at all 124 Wyevale Garden Centres. The firm said it was taking them out of circulation "in light of recent events".
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