World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you
blogs.discovermagazine.com
blogs.discovermagazine.com
Wetterhahn, a specialist in toxic metals, was accidentally poisoned in her lab by a few drops of the toxic, colorless compound, which penetrated her protective glove... Wetterhahn recalled that she had spilled several drops of dimethylmercury from the tip of the pipette onto her latex gloved hand. Tests later showed that this can rapidly permeate different kinds of latex gloves and enter the skin within about 15 seconds
IMHO, that's just about the most horrible combination imaginable.
Wetterhahn died a few months later, less than a year after her initial exposure.
This situation must be incredibly unlikely though because I've dealt with thousands of Zooanthids and hundreds of customers over the years I never had anything like this happen nor heard about it from anybody. However, I certainly wish I had known so I could have warned customers about the risks, because in the aquarium world Zooanthids are considered a great starter coral because they are very hardy and don't require much light.
On the other hand, there are plenty of other (often hidden) things in your average reef aquarium that can potentially injure you and leave your local emergency department at a loss. People don't normally get stung by fireworms (or whatever) 5000 miles away from the tropical ocean.
a person who was poisoned had an opportunity to figure 'oh i dont feel well', went to a hospital, made it to the hospital, and survived
the real deadly biological systems don't even give you a chance to ask if that is a missile coming over the hill
If you are talking about threat from terrorism, then as an aerosol is the only effective way to distribute it.
and if you were doing that, even something simple like Sarin is an order of magnitude stronger than this stuff
the agents that were being produced during the cold war by third-world countries are again stronger than sarin and probably easy to make for a small group
So the lethal dose of palytoxin is ~1/438th of the lethal dose of sarin.
I am not sure what point you are trying to make with that sentence. That this proves it's not very toxic? We know how toxic it is. The LD-50 has been determined with some precision. What this would therefore prove was that his dose was low, which considering the suboptimal delivery method isn't that surprising.
Was very interesting to see Botox requiring 2300x a smaller dose than VX.
This doesn't, specifically, mean anything about the potency of the poison. It means something about the potency and the size of the dose the guy received. There is a spectrum of possible conclusions between "huge dose and weak poison" or "tiny does and strong poison".
The deadliest "synthetic" poison with a known toxic level is polonium-210, used in the murder of Alexander Litivenko. It comes in third to palytoxin and botulinum toxin in potency.
Right. Overall it's the fourth deadliest, with an L.D.50 of 300ng/kg, behind Maitotoxin (130ng/kg), Polonium 210 (10ng/kg) and Botulinum (1ng/kg).
Is that supposed to make it better?
> a person who was poisoned had an opportunity to figure 'oh i dont feel well', went to a hospital, made it to the hospital, and survived
A person who was poisoned with a low dose of aerosolized palytoxin survived. Injected, you would not stand a chance.
If, by "it", you mean the accuracy of the headline, then yes. If, by "it", you mean the availability of the poison, then no.
We live on the largest planet in our solar system, if you apply the appropriate qualification; just like this poison is the second deadliest, if you apply the appropriate qualification.
"If delivered immediately, vasodilators injected into the ventricle of the heart can act as an antidote."
EDIT: Oh, the deadliest, not the second deadliest. Botulinum toxin, of course.
And we inject it in ourselves voluntarily.
Humans are such funny creatures.
If one goes by the minimum value which is 0.05mg, an equivalent amount of this stuff can kill 2,500 human sized mice with 50% probability. That's potent stuff.
Well, had written 'people' in place of 'human sized mice' but the LD-50 values used were those for mice, so it is only fair that I measure in "human sized mice" units.
Should we be keeping this stuff about in case of a Dire-Mouse invasion?
In order for this toxin to be dangerous to humans, the average aquarist would need to ingest the zoanthid in sufficient quantities, or brush a recent cut over it. Average handling, propagation and aquarium maintenance is unlikely to pose any danger beyond a localized skin reaction.[citation needed] A 2010 study found toxic zoanthids in three Washington D.C. area aquarium stores.[7]