07.17.14
Posted in Bioterrorism at 2:45 pm by George Smith
From the Hattiesburg newspaper:
René Olier went fishing June 5 just the way he had for 50 years. He stopped to get live bait and set out for an area south of Cat Island.
The 63-year-old returned about 2:30 p.m. feeling fine, his wife, Linda Olier, said, but woke up in the night with chills. Probably just from being in the sun all day, they thought.
The next morning, though, he started having gastrointestinal distress and pain near the hand he’d used to scoop bait. Probably from all the horse flies, he thought. She went to get Benadryl from a nearby store and by the time she got back his arm was visibly swollen …
Luckily, the Oliers’ daughter had written a Facebook post about his condition. A friend, whose father lost his leg to Vibrio after getting cut on a crab trap, was able to recommend a doctor.
René Olier was transferred to Memorial Hospital at Gulfport, where the affected tissue was removed. But by the next morning, his organs were failing.
“(The doctor) said he’s not gonna live through the night unless we amputate his arm,??? Linda Olier said, but the procedure saved his life.
It’s a terrible illness. No one gets through it easily. A week earlier, the newspaper mentions, another man lost his life.
“Mississippi had 12 reported cases in 2012,” reads the newspaper.
Previously, here.
How it eats you, through science, many years ago.
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07.02.14
Posted in Bioterrorism, Culture of Lickspittle at 11:43 am by George Smith
In 1982 there was virtually no interest in the flesh-eating microbe, Vibrio vulnificus. When I left school, doctorate in hand, there were probably only a handful of people working on it worldwide. On interviews in which I presented a seminar on it, there was never any enthusiasm. No one wanted to hear a thing. The research, the entire stay at grad school, was regarded as virtually nothing.
Yesterday, from the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville:
More than 40 Florida residents showed up at hospitals last year with a certain bacterial infection, and soon the words “flesh-eating disease??? screamed across headlines.
The bacteria, which killed 11 people, is always an underlying concern, but sometimes officials don’t know how prevalent the bacteria is in local waters.
A Jacksonville University class went out on the St. Johns River on Monday to get an idea of how much of the bacteria exists in the waterway.
There’s no guarantee the study will find much bacteria or any at all, said Anthony Ouellette, a JU assistant professor of biology. The goal of the project is to check out a public safety concern while teaching his students real-world research methods.
Forty-one Floridians developed the infection in 2013, including one in Duval County, one in St. Johns County and one in Nassau County, and 11 people died, according to the Florida Department of Health.
“If we do have an upsurge at some point,??? [the professor leading the student sampling experiment on the water] said, “having background numbers for what naturally exists in these habitats is important.???
Out on the St. Johns River on Monday, Marshalluna Land balanced a dropper over a sampling well as the boat swayed.
The JU marine biology graduate student carefully diluted the salt water so she and her peers would be able to filter out the bacteria and other microbes for study.
As a side observation on the value of the social network, I posted a link to my V. vulfnificus season summary on FB and it was ignored, except for one comment, an inappropriate “Yummy!”, something I had to gently chide the person over.
This is not to say science isn’t dealt with on the social networks. I often see posts to my feed about some aspect of science pre-masticated by the media, shared by people with no science background in my “friends” list. But it always has to fit into their political or philosophical worldview or be of a current famous scientist in the news.
Basic science at the grass-roots level has virtually no meaning for most Americans. That’s a pity and the entire country’s loss.
Perhaps Upworthy needs to handle it.
Previously — on the vulnificus beat.
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06.30.14
Posted in Bioterrorism, Culture of Lickspittle at 1:47 pm by George Smith
It’s the season for flesh-eating disease on the Gulf Coast. Warmer water at this time of year results in more of the marine vibrio, V. vulnificus in the water, on the rocks and submerged objects in shallow water, and in shell fish.
The microbe is always present but the summer months give it optimal growth conditions. Coupled with the tourist season, there is a yearly arrival of cases of flesh-eating disease and septicemia caused by the organism I earned my doctorate on.
“V. vulnificus is a rare cause of disease, but it is also underreported,” reads the Centers for Disease Control. “Between 1988 and 2006, CDC received reports of more than 900 V. vulnificus infections from the Gulf Coast states, where most cases occur. Before 2007, there was no national surveillance system for V. vulnificus …”
“An average of 50 culture-confirmed cases, 45 hospitalizations, and 16 deaths are reported each year from the Gulf Coast region (reporting states are Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas). Nationwide, there are as many as 95 cases (half of which are culture confirmed), 85 hospitalizations, and 35 deaths.”
In years to come, the effect of global warming on its incidence will bear watching.
Statistically, V. vulnificus disease carries about a 50 percent rate of mortality if it becomes systemic, infiltrating large portions of the body or in the blood stream. That’s high. And it’s because, while the organism is easy to treat with antibiotics, it must be caught early in the course of an infection. Those who go to the emergency room or doctor immediately upon seeing a festering wound with spreading systemic component, do best.
Excerpts from the Gulf Coast news wires:
A Treasure Coast man is recovering from a flesh-eating bacterial infection that took over his leg in a constellation-like pattern starting with a cut he got on his ankle.
“Diarrhea, fatigued, not to mention everyday waking up everyday with the weight of what is wrong with me and am I going to be okay?” JJ Davidson said of his 4-week progression since contracting Vibrio Vulnificus ..
Vibrio Vulnificus infected 30 people last year and killed 10 in Florida.
It’s invisible and rare, but often deadly.
Davidson says he knows he became infected at the popular Stuart sandbar, where after he cut his foot, he became incredibly sick.
“I was walking through the water about knee deep and I had an anchor cut my ankle,” JJ said days later he noticed a painful sore develop, and fatigue set in, “I noticed my calf started to get a blistery infection that started to pop up on it. My thigh up here broke out in the same blistery rash.”
Florida health officials have already reported six cases this year; four due to the infection of an open wound and two from consuming raw shellfish.
On June 7, 2013, while fishing along the rocks in front of Grand Isle [Louisiana], Rick Garey contracted the flesh-eating bacteria vibrio vulnificus through a minor scrape on his left ankle.
Within 48 hours, he was literally fighting for his life at Lady of the Sea General Hospital in Cut Off and then at Terrebonne General Medical Center in Houma, where he endured seven surgeries and a two-week stay, including three days in critical care …
“I’m real happy I can see 57,??? Garey said. “I didn’t know if I’d see 56 for a while.???
“Vibrio is bad news. It’s nasty stuff. When you mention vibrio around doctors, you can almost see the color change in their face,??? Garey said. “It happens fast and it’s wickedly efficient, and you don’t even know it.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a macho NFL lineman, it will eat you up just as fast.???
My lasting contribution to science was the determination and partial characterization of an enzyme called a collagenase produced by V. vulnificus.
It was my doctoral thesis. And in formulating the problem, I had looked at the disease, then just emergent and the causative organism with the reasoning that production of a collagenase would be quite likely in such a case.
Collagenase in an enzyme the brings about a fast degradation of collagen which makes up 30 percent of the protein in people. Collagen is found in skin, blood vessels, muscle and liver.
As part of the marine estuarine environment, the microbe produces its collagenase in the digestion of food sources for use.
When large numbers of V. vulnificus proliferate in a wound or in a blood infection, the production of this enzyme, which is always on, contributes to the catastrophic results.
“Clinical characteristics of V. vulnificus suggest that the organism is capable of invading healthy tissue, which to us raises the possibility that the organism produces collagenolytic enzymes,” reads my paper, “Collagenolytic activity of Vibrio vulnficus: Potential Contribution to its Invasiveness,” from 1982.
“Vibrio vulnficus produces two disease states, a rapidly progressive cellulitis from wound infection and a bacteremia which, in some cases, produces secondary lesions which allow the organism to infiltrate the dermis and, in one extreme example, the cerebrospinal fluid. Production of collagenase in vivo could contribute to the invasive property in these cases.”
The data collected showed that the collagenase did digest collagen, ours extracted from the skins of freshly-slaughtered calfs, quite efficiently.
Over the years, the paper was well-received.
The disease is still rare. That is, most people who come in contact with the organism never know it. But it is a recognized hazard, one that has gradually increased since my work on it decades ago.
Consequences of disease caused by V. vulnificus are well documented in pictures at images.google.com. Be advised: They’re unsettling.
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06.13.14
Posted in Bioterrorism, Ricin Kooks at 1:18 pm by George Smith
What was the Poisoner’s black market for young American men? Apparently, Black Market Reloaded, accessed on TOR, before it was taken down.
A San Francisco Chronicle piece tells the story of another arrested man, one who had purchased what he thought were liquid poisons on BMR.
I’m not going to try to paraphrase it:
Court filings by FBI Special Agent Michael Eldridge allege that Chamberlain sought to buy abrin, a natural poison that is found in rosary pea seeds and is considered to be a potential weapon of terrorism, among other illicit chemicals, and to have the toxins shipped to his Polk Street apartment …
In February, Eldridge said, a New York City man told police and the FBI that he had bought cyanide and abrin on Black Market Reloaded so he could commit suicide, before apparently having second thoughts.
It turned out, the FBI said, that the same online seller had sent abrin to Chamberlain. When that man, a Sacramento resident, was arrested last month, he told the FBI that Chamberlain had previously sought to buy liquid ricin from another seller but balked at the high price. Ricin comes from castor beans.
Chamberlain “indicated that he was seeking abrin to ‘ease the suffering’ of cancer patients” and asked the Sacramento seller whether abrin could be detected in the autopsy of a dead person, Eldridge wrote …
Abrin, ricin, even nicotine and bomb-making show up: The stars of the death files of the old computer underground, now peddled on-line, or at least ersatz versions of them. Chamberlain, the story reads, complained that the BMR seller’s abrin did not work.
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06.10.14
Posted in Bioterrorism, Ricin Kooks at 12:51 pm by George Smith
Jeffrey Levenderis of Akron, OH, was convicted in a ricin case that had been on the books since 2011 when the FBI discovered a mixture containing it in a jar in his former dwelling.
The government said is was to be part of a plot to kill his stepfather and “against first responders who might respond to a fire Levenderis planned to set at his house as part of an elaborate suicide plan,” according to a news report.
This, perhaps, speaks to the state of Levenderis’ mind. As described in the news the plan makes little sense. Ricin is a protein and is destroyed by heat. How it would be used in a fire is a mystery. That would now seem immaterial.
The jury trial took four days. Levenderis had been in jail since 2011 and was confined to a wheelchair.
Details are here and here.
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05.20.14
Posted in Bioterrorism, Ricin Kooks at 9:55 am by George Smith
J. Everett Dutschke’s band, Robodrum, playing his song, “Superhero,” in 2012.
A 25 year prison sentence marks the end of the trail for one of country’s strangest fellows, ricin mailer and industrious outsider musician, J. Everett Dutschke, the only castor bean pounder to ever be a finalist in a Budweiser beer Battle of the Bands. (Last year, Budweiser quietly disappeared its YouTube video of Dutschke and his band performing in St. Louis as part of the brand’s promotion. However, as seen above there is still home video of Robodrum, performing in Tupelo, just prior to the development of his castor powder mailing plan.)
From AP:
A Mississippi man who pleaded guilty to sending letters dusted with the poison ricin to President Barack Obama and other officials was sentenced Monday to 25 years in prison.
James Everett Dutschke was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock in Aberdeen after telling the judge May 13 that he had changed his mind about wanting to withdraw his guilty plea in the case.
From last week:
[Dutschke] reportedly recanted his confession and launched into a rant against Kevin Curtis, the Elvis impersonator he attempted to frame for the letters, comparing him to Barney the Dinosaur. Then Dutschke compared himself to an Olympic gymnast.
Dutschke then said that he would happily empty the contents of the letters he is accused of sending into a peanut butter sandwich and eat it to prove it was not poison.
However, the summer of 2012 had J. Everett Dutschke and Robodrum in St. Louis, competing to win a Budweiser Light Battle of the Bands.
It resulted in what’s now the one and only example of an American accused of bioterrorism in a ritzy promotional video sponsored and paid for by the King of Beers
In make-up, glitter and sunglasses, Dutschke sings he doesn’t need any fancy women, he just needs his guitar because he’ll blow your house down in “Big Bad Wolf,” a song from a Robodrum album of the same name. “Enjoy Responsibly” reads the big beer vendor’s subtitling on the video.
From Bean Pounding: J. Everett Dutschke and the strange saga of outsider music and bioterrorism.
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05.13.14
Posted in Bioterrorism, Ricin Kooks, Rock 'n' Roll at 11:30 am by George Smith
J. Everett Dutschke, the only alleged ricin maker to ever be a finalist in a Budweiser beer Battle of the Bands contest is in the news again. And I cannot do it justice.
So, here, from the local newspaper:
A man accused of sending ricin to President Barack Obama and two other public officials, then framing an Elvis impersonator recanted his confession at a sentencing hearing this morning after pleading guilty four ricin-related charges …
[Dutschke] reportedly recanted his confession and launched into a rant against Kevin Curtis, the Elvis impersonator he attempted to frame for the letters, comparing him to Barney the Dinosaur. Then Dutschke compared himself to an Olympic gymnast.
Dutschke then said that he would happily empty the contents of the letters he is accused of sending into a peanut butter sandwich and eat it to prove it was not poison.
J. Everett Dutschke — and a whole lot more — from WhiteManistan blog’s incomparable archives.
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04.24.14
Posted in Bioterrorism, Culture of Lickspittle, Ricin Kooks at 9:53 am by George Smith
Walter White toasts you, new young ricin men.
American mass media and Google are not your friends. Together, they’ve created a peculiar and abnormal environment which manifests in increasingly unusual pathologies.
Google search now judges the most relevant materials to be those selected through crowd-sourcing by idiots. And so it is elementary to find worthless recipes for ricin with a smartphone app in an instant, along with lots of information that guarantees young men who are broken in some way a quick visit from a federal and state joint anti-terrorism task force.
Today, Preston Rhoads, 30 of Oklahoma City, makes the second young American in 60 days to have been tabbed as influenced by Walter White, Breaking Bad and its secondary plot of ricin poisoning. Rhoads is the fourth young man arrested this year in connection with ricin-kookism, already up one from three arrests in the 12 months of last year.
The first was young Danny Milzman, a student at Georgetown University, of whom much has already been written here.
Walter White said ricin was a fine poison, untraceable. And it is on the net in hundreds of places. Therefore, it must be true.
The prison sentence that would result from a conviction in the Rhoads case is probably around fifteen years.
From the wires in OKC:
Court documents state an Oklahoma City man arrested in a murder plot mentioned a popular television show before revealing he had Ricin.
Federal agents said Preston Rhoads was planning on killing his pregnant girlfriend and her unborn fetus with the deadly toxin.
The Oklahoma Department of Health told News 9 the state has never had a documented case of Ricin toxicity …
The use of Ricin was a plot line in the hit television series, Breaking Bad. Ricin is a potentially deadly toxin made from castor beans. The federal search warrant stated Preston Rhoads asked a friend about the show just moments before showing the friend a vial.
In three of the four ricin cases this year, the young men now in jail talked to a friend or showed them their castor powder concoctions.
Either because they have a subliminal desire to go to jail or because the country won’t know how clever you are with ricin poison, like Walter White, if you don’t tell someone about it. Or both.
Oh, and like Preston Rhoads, ask the buddy if he would like to deliver a pizza to your girlfriend and put your powder on it. Most friends would respond well to such a request, don’t you think? Would Jesse have done it for Walter if he wanted to poison Skyler?
In a very small way it may be satisfying to see how a character and story have so indelibly inspired a special cohort of the American citizenry. But if I were Bryan Cranston, the script writers and the show’s science advisor, I’d actually be kinda bummed at this point. And I enjoyed Breaking Bad. (Google, on the other hand, doesn’t bum out about anything. Part of its function is to raise digital road spikes, oil slicks and cinder blocks hidden in paper bags to the top positions in search on the information superhighway.)
Earlier, on this channel:
The hit TV show “Breaking Bad??? and its dark plotlines played an outsized role in a federal courtroom in Washington this week …
In the case of the Georgetown student, defense attorneys have said Milzman was a troubled 19-year-old struggling with depression. He created the ricin, his lawyers said, because he wanted to hide his suicide plans from his family. If he became ill from the substance, no one would know that he had killed himself.
But the federal prosecutor argued that Milzman’s statements about “Breaking Bad??? suggested otherwise. She told the judge that the show’s protagonist produced ricin not to commit suicide, but to kill someone else. A friend said Milzman was such a big fan of the show he knew the name of each episode by heart. [Italicized — from the WaPost.]
The judge asked if Milzman was such a big fan of the show, why had not the prosecutors brought it up on the day another judge had ordered the young man released to psychiatric treatment in a DC hospital?
The government’s lawyer responded she had been unfamiliar with the show.
“I was not as familiar with the show then as I am today,??? said Assistant U.S. Attorney Maia Miller …
Public service announcement
This blog’s 2006 rendition of the illustration that accompanied Kurt Saxon’s ricin recipe from The Poor Man’s James Bond, one of the original sources of web “manuals” on how to make it. Use your smartphone to share it on social media with your friends! They’ll think you’re as clever as Walter White! Then the armored car circus will visit your neighborhood!
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04.23.14
Posted in Bioterrorism, Culture of Lickspittle, Ricin Kooks, WhiteManistan at 1:08 pm by George Smith
From the bleak tale of 30-year-old Preston Rhoads of Oklahoma City, the country’s latest but certainly not last ricin kook:
A federal affidavit and search warrant just unsealed this afternoon lays out a possible motive behind the alleged murder plot that has Preston Rhoads behind bars.
The 14-page affidavit reveals how Rhoads reportedly asked a former co-worker to kill his pregnant girlfriend and her unborn baby.
Authorities said Rhoads texted a former co-worker telling him he had something serious to discuss with him.
The friend jokingly stated that he can “make people disappear.” Rhoads responded via text, saying not to joke about that if you can’t deliver.
During a face-to-face meeting, the co-worker said Rhoads showed him a vial and claimed it was Ricin. That same co-worker said Rhoads told him he downloaded a manual explaining how to manufacture the poison.
The co-worker said, while at Rhoads’ home, he found what he believed to be equipment to make ricin in the bathroom.
The affidavit reveals Rhoads wanted to use ricin to harm the girlfriend, because he felt it could not be easily traced.
And where do people learn ricin “[can’t] be easily traced”?
Unfortunately, from tv, Google and their smartphones.
Google search is not your friend. Google search relevance is, in many cases — including this one, determined by the wisdom of crowds of idiots. And they know this in Mountain View. Which is probably one reason, among a host, that they won’t talk to anyone on the telephone.
If you are looking for recipes for ricin, Google will give worthless web pages to you, either fine pieces of misinformation, or even more efficiently, perfect as materials for running afoul of the law.
Google will return articles on ricin, perhaps written by a know-nothing journalist at Slate, who explains helpfully how you don’t have to a terrorist to be good enough to make ricin.
Google will not show you any articles or much of the real record on how everyone who “makes ricin” is found out and their neighborhood stormed, with eye-watering speed, by a joint federal and state anti-ricin task force.
Google will not return you any articles that inform you that texting on the matter to others through your smartphone is a known process by which the anti-ricin squad is summoned.
What can you do? I give up.
Remember, as Kurt Saxon, one of the nation’s first and foremost ricin kooks, wrote in the late Eighties (but updated for 2014):
“It is bad to poison your fellow man [and wife], blow [them] up or even shoot [them] or otherwise disturb [their] tranquility. It is also uncouth to counterfeit your nation’s currency and it is tacky to destroy property as instructed in [the chapter] Arson and Electronics …
“But some people are just naturally crude … It is your responsibility, then, to be aware of the many ways bad people can be harmful …
“It is right to share with your enemies, the knowledge in this wonderful [ricin manual Google helped you find so you could download it with your smartphone and text your pals about it] …???
Post this on Instagram or Pinterest! Text the link to your friends with your smartphone! Or just use SnapChat! They’ll think you’re as clever as Walter White!
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04.01.14
Posted in Bioterrorism, Ricin Kooks at 10:51 am by George Smith
What’s wrong with this picture? Read the post to find out. The now bog standard American response to powdered castor seeds.
From KPCC public radio in Pasadena:
Three people including a Los Angeles police officer and a firefighter were hospitalized after being exposed to what was thought to be a dangerous substance.
Police Lt. Sabrina Kuhn tells City News Service that firefighters responded late Monday to a call of a possible overdose in Van Nuys.
They found a 23-year-old man had injected himself with a mix of an unknown white power and crushed castor beans …
A HazMat team determined that the crushed castor beans were not harmful, but admitted the firefighter and officer to a hospital as a precautionary measure. Ten residences in the area were briefly evacuated.
Police mentioned the unnamed individual may be subject to mental evaluation upon release from the hospital.
One science paper on an extremely rare event, abstract at the National Institutes of Health online library, on a suicide by injection of castor in 2009:
A case report is presented of a 49-year-old man who committed suicide by intravenous and subcutaneous injection of a castor bean extract. He was brought to the emergency department 24 h after injecting himself. On admission, the patient was conscious and he presented with a history of nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, dyspnoea, vertigo and muscular pain. Despite symptomatic and supportive intensive care, the man died 9 h after admission due to multiorgan failure …
Based on the clinical symptoms and the results of the toxicological analysis, we concluded that death was caused by intoxication with plant toxins originated from R. communis L.
A fascinating 2011 scientific review, available for free, entitled Ricinus communis: Intoxications in human and veterinary medicine, is also here.
Excerpted:
A very recent review on the American Association of Poison Control Centers reports 45 fatalities out of more than 2 million plant poisonings between 1983 and 2009, of these, only one fatal case was attributed to Ricinus communis, while the majority (16 deaths) was caused by Datura and Cicuta species. A review by the Swiss Toxicology Information Centre mentioned 130 serious cases including five fatal plant poisonings between 1966 and 1994, among them three non-fatal cases related to Ricinus communis. These reviews of local plant poisonings support the opinion that intoxications with Ricinus communis usually do not belong to the most common or serious poisonings occurring accidentally in humans.
The seeds of Ricinus communis have a long history as medical remedy; it is therefore not surprising to find cases linked with adverse reaction to them: A Korean woman who had eaten five castor seeds in order to treat constipation was admitted to hospital with severe nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and initially near hypothermia; in this case ricin was detected in urine samples, symptoms were treated (fluids, charcoal) and she was discharged after 2 days. Similar cases have been reported from Brazil and Croatia …
In cases of intended uptake of ricin different reports describe suicides by injection of a self-made seed extract in Poland, Belgium and the US (Table 1). A fatal suicide took place in Poland, here a man subcutaneously injected himself with a Ricinus communis seed extract and was admitted 36 h later to the clinic with nausea, dizziness, pain and severe weakness. He deteriorated with haemorrhagic diathesis and multi-organ failure and died after asystolic arrest 18 h later …
Overall-among all plant poisonings reported-human cases of ricin poisoning are rare. With modern supportive care the fatality rate is low, except in suicide cases where a ricin-containing extract is injected, reflecting the higher toxicity after parenteral application.
Rough as well as precise evidence accumulated worldwide on death by castor seed consumption as well as injection over the course of many years yielded the following:
876 accidental cases (including one by injection), of which 13 died — or 1.5 percent. Paradoxically, the one injection case did not result in a fatality.
11 intended poisoning cases, 5 of which were oral and 6 by injection. Of these, none died in the oral sample while 5 expired after injection — or 45.5 percent of the whole.
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