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How soon do symptoms appear?
The time from exposure to ricin to onset of symptoms can be from less than 1 hour to 12 hours or greater. Symptoms from poisoning through eating can occur within 2-3 hours. Inhalation poisoning occurs within 3 hours.

What is the treatment for Ricin poisoning?
Ricin poisoning is treated through supportive medical care to minimize the effects of the poisoning.

Where is ricin found and how is it used?
Castor beans are processed throughout the world to make castor oil. Ricin has potential medical uses such as bone marrow transplants and cancer treatment.

WHAT IS RICIN?
Ricin is a poison made from waste left over from processing castor beans. It can be in the form of a powder, a mist, a pellet, or it can be dissolved in water or weak acid. It is a stable substance that’s not affected by extreme conditions such as very hot or very cold temperatures.

SYMPTOMS
Symptoms are determined by the route of exposure and amount received.

Routes of exposure/symptoms:

INHALATION: Difficulty breathing, fever, cough, nausea, and tightness in the chest, heavy sweating, skin turning blue, low blood pressure, respiratory failure

INGESTION: Vomiting, bloody diarrhea, severe dehydration, low blood pressure, hallucinations, seizures, and blood in the urine SKIN and EYE: redness and pain of the skin and eyes Showing these signs and symptoms does not necessarily mean that a person has been exposed to ricin.

HOW IS RICIN SPREAD?
It would take a deliberate act to make ricin and use it to poison people. People can breathe in ricin mist or powder. Ricin can get into the water or food and then be swallowed Pellets of ricin or ricin dissolved in a liquid can be injected into people’s body. Ricin poisoning is not contagious. It cannot be spread from person to person.

Ricin is 500 times stronger than cobra venom and 1,500 times more deadly than cyanide. The equivalent of a grain of salt would be enough to kill an adult, and a fatal dose takes around three days to kill the person affected.
The health service is on alert after traces of the poison were discovered in a flat in London and six men were arrested as terrorist suspects at the weekend.

Ricin-related symptoms include fever and nausea, which progresses to severe abdominal pains and fits. Victims die from multiple organ failure and there is no known antidote or vaccine.

The bioxtoxin works by shutting down protein synthesis in the body and takes four to eight hours to incubate after being eaten or inhaled, so a victim would not necessarily realise they were in potential peril at the moment of contact.

The poison inhibits protein synthesis and has widespread toxic effects on the body, which include damage to most organ systems and a combination of pulmonary, liver, renal and immunological failure which may lead to death.

The exact early symptoms depend on the route of exposure. In all cases, fever, gastrointestinal upset, and coughing will be amongst the first effects noted - but of course these are symptoms of any number of benign ailments.

Absorption via inhalation as a result of exposure to the toxin in aerosol form leads to particularly serious lung damage including adult respiratory distress syndrome. Flesh eating lesions develop in the airways and cause respiratory and heart failure.

Swallowing ricin causes gastroenteritis, bloody diarrhoea and vomiting. People poisoned by a large dose could die of shock after massive fluid loss through severe diarrhoea. Effects on the central nervous system have been reported to include seizures.

The symptoms are similar to the first world war gas phosgene, or more modern nerve gases such as sarin, developed in the second world war, and used by the Aum cult on the Tokyo subway system in 1995 in an attack that left 12 people dead.