[Dog]

fyi..

[Darksheare]

Maybe ricin wasn't the substance of choice for saponin transmission?

[swarthyguy]

remember the bust last year in a mosque of the suspected ricin attack? Think it was that onearmedscumbag Hamza's outhouse.

[alley cat]

There is so much missing here. Did they arrest anybody? What exactly is meant by "the islamic community"?? WHAT business was involved??

The article makes it sound like no harm no foul and the matter was dropped.

[blam]

We're saved again by the terrorists stupidity. Does Islam make one stupid?

[Experiment 6-2-6]

Centre for Nonproliferation Studies of the Monterey Institute

Okay..

Like, I'm trying to figure out where they decided how their opinion was important?

The Monterey Nonproliferation Strategy Group is an international body of distinguished nonproliferation analysts and veteran policy practitioners working to craft responses to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) threats around the world. Its members aim to develop innovative and practical policy recommendations to thwart the proliferation of WMD and to sustain nonproliferation norms and regimes.

That being said, are these good guys or bad guys?

I can't tell at first glance..

[Paul Atreides]

Chemical attack foiled in UK

The anti-war crowd isn't having a very good week: first a visit from W, and now this.

[Plutarch]

British laboratory Amersham Biosciences received an order in Autumn 2002 for 500kg of saponin from a company giving a London post office box address, the newspaper said.

Breathtaking ineptitude. I guess there is a reason the countries spawning terrorists tend to be backward hellholes.

[VOA]

I wish this hadn't been reported.
Now equally stupid terrorist are tipped off that they shouldn't order over a TON of
a compound at one time.

This sounds so incredible, I almost think this is an article from The Onion.
Not even an amateur terrorist should be this stupid.

[genefromjersey]

Exactly what I thought: another overblown, poorly researched story from the UK !!

You'll find saponin in a lot of things: aloe vera, that Herbal Essence shampoo the models get so excited about in the shower,fire extinguishing solutions,emulsifiers for tars and for medicines, ginseng (quite a bit of saponin in that !),digitalis,etc. It is poisonous if you can swallow enough of it.

Amersham Biosciences has facilities in nearby (to me) Piscataway, NJ, the UK (where this yarn originated), and a few other spots around the globe.One of the "persons of interest" in the anthrax investigation wound up working at the Piscataway facility at last report.

I suspect the "bated breath" news report involved more than a little press agentry.