Word: saxitoxin
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...made in the toxin case. According to the U.N.'s Biological Weapons Convention, the U.S. Government has until Dec. 26 to get rid of all biological warfare materials. Probably the best solution was proposed last week by Murdoch Ritchie, a Yale pharmacology professor and an expert on saxitoxin. Since it is invaluable for the study of such diseases as multiple sclerosis, Ritchie urged that the CIA's costly trove of the poison be turned over to medical researchers. Under the terms of the U.N. accord, peaceful uses of even the deadliest poisons are perfectly permissible...
...secret supply of quick and terrible poisons-in direct violation of a presidential order. In keeping with the draft convention of the U.N. Disarmament Conference, Richard Nixon five years ago ordered the destruction of all stocks of toxin weapons. But the CIA held on to 10.9 grams of saxitoxin, a close chemical cousin of the fearsome fugu, along with eight milligrams of a toxin made from cobra venom. That minuscule stockpile is enough, said Church, to kill "many thousands of people...
Dart Guns. Six-tenths of a milligram of saxitoxin can kill an adult, often within an hour, by blocking the transmission of impulses in the nervous system-just as in Fleming's account. Saxitoxin is produced by a single-cell sea creature that flourishes during the warmest months. Oysters, clams and mussels that eat the organism are poisonous to humans, which is why in some areas such seafood is not harvested in summer. By contrast, fugu poison, which has almost the same effect, is always present in the sex organs and liver of Japanese puffer fish. Hence in Japan...
...1950s the CIA began experimenting with saxitoxin at Fort Detrick, Md., where it also carried out the notorious LSD experiments that led to, among other things, the long hushed-up death of Biochemist Frank Olson (TIME, July 21). Researchers took contaminated butter clams and distilled the poison from them through a costly process. According to sources close to Church's panel, the CIA used saxitoxin in suicide pills for its own agents (U2 Pilot Francis Gary Powers had one, but chose to pass it up) and had it on hand to eliminate troublesome guard dogs when breaking into embassies...