Talk:Ricin

message: Could anyone refer me to an official statement (ie a court decision) concerning the Georgi Markov case? --Vladko 10:09, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I could not find any.  It could be a speculation. At least I consider it so, unless proven in the court of law. Andru nl (talk) 20:20, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

text: It does not indeed. I removed the false statement. Andru nl (talk) 20:20, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Georgi Markov Case 

message: "The protein ricin (pronounced rye-sin) is a toxin from the castor bean (Ricinus communis). Its name comes from the seed's resemblance to the tick."
Does "ricinus" mean "tick" in Latin? I don't get it. It's the very first statement in the article and it's humorously ambiguous. Someone care to explain? (And clarify it in the article?) Grandmasterka 13:55, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is mentioned in Castor_oil_plant as well. (I have no idea whether it's correct or not, though). Itub 14:33, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

text: After doing some searching, it appears that it is true: there is a species of tick called Ixodes ricinus! However, I think that this piece of trivia is too loosely connected with this article to deserve mention. A mention in Castor oil plant is fine IMO. Itub 16:35, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not loosely connected. The article name is Ricin, the Latin word for tick is Ricinus. You do the math216.249.58.67 (talk) 17:08, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Huh?

message: Should we be giving instructions online on how to extract Ricin? I don't the policies on Wikipedia is on this... But The intructions here a little too detailed in my opinion. Hqduong 01:55, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that such details are not needed for an encyclopedia article. I'd vote for deletion. Rwendland 18:11, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a toughie; it is after all part of the public domain and available online elsewhere. (If we cut out the image, we obviously have to eliminate that reference too.) If someone else thinks it should go, I will bring it to Images for Deletion to be discussed. Grandmasterka 22:39, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Can I backtrack. I'd thought "Extraction process", went beyond the patent info, in describing how to create an aerosol powder, but I see now that is in the patent. I don't have an issue with para-phrasing the patent. (NB "Extraction process" should be made a subsection of "Patent" to make it clearer it merely describes the patent.) Rwendland 16:47, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

text: This was discussed above.  I think it should be left.  It is readily available on the internet (and in books).  68.89.0.250 02:40, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I agree. Grandmasterka 02:43, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

text: In my opinion, it should be removed. Regardless of terrorist concerns, the exact details of how to produce it is irrelevant to an encyclopedic article. It's non-notable and/or outside the scope of relevancy. By comparison, if I look up Chocolate brownie or Plum pudding or some other food dish, it doesn't give a recipe for it, does it? The fact that recipies for those things are available elsewhere doesn't mean they belongs here, either.  --BluePlatypus 19:17, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  That's an excellent point. Also, we must consider the ramifications in terms of publicity should some nut actually create the stuff (it wouldn't be the first time), and investigators discovered that the source of the receipe was Wikipedia. Considering that our listings find such a high priority on Google would make this article very tempting in that regard. I say we cut it. – ClockworkSoul 23:31, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Disagree strongly - knowing about the extraction process is very relevant and useful, if you want to learn about Ricin itself. Case in point - when we hear about ricin plots being foiled, it would be useful to learn of what materials or evidence may be present. If we don't include this information for ricin, we might as well pare down the nuclear bomb article to 'it makes big booms'. It's public information. Being scared about negative publicity from a hypothetical event is silly.--Fangz 00:00, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Your "big booms" hyperbole is far sillier than my concerns. After all, it is far more difficult to manufacture a nuclear weapon than it is to refine ricin. Keep it, don't keep it: I don't care enough to do more than voice my opinion. It does seem odd, though, that we won't keep a recipe for biscuits, but we'll keep one for ricin. – ClockworkSoul 00:08, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

text:  Knowing that it's produced by extraction is useful. But the exact concentrations, pH values and so on is not relevant to understanding the process. It's not general-purpose information. Also, if you look at any page on any science experiment or industrial process or such, that level of information is not included. It's unencyclopedic. Whether it's public information or not is irrelevant. There are plenty of things that are public information which are beyond the scope of Wikipedia. --BluePlatypus 13:55, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Of course this should be deleted. It's dangerous, and has nothing to do with relevant information for an encyclopedia. The argument above, that somehow knowing about the extraction process is important for knowing about Ricin itself is ludicrous--do we need to know how to produce high fructose corn syrup to understand soda? The food analogies here are very, very wise. If extracting it is, in and of itself, a crime, Wikipedia shouldn't link people to an image that shows them how to extract it. It's not something to "play" with--it's a dangerous substance. Dump it, dump it now. Kmaguir1 07:56, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Isn't this Dangerous

message: "Typically 2.5–20 raw seeds can kill an adult human;"
That's a range of 17.5 seeds, which is quite a lot. Can we narrow this down?
:No we cannot narrow it down. The range is huge because the toxin is available in different amounts in different spp of Ricinus. 216.249.58.67 (talk) 17:02, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  How much ricin? 

message: I think the methode of preparation is as essential as the chemical structure, the mode of action, the signs of poisening (acute leucocytosis etc., as we know from experiments with pigs), and the cause of death. Otherwise why looking up the wikipedia? If I dont get the facts I can read the newspaper. —Preceding unsigned comment added by kaltenbrunner (talk • contribs) 
:The preparation is not included per wp:not (not a manual).  That still leaves enough facts to tell, though, so indeed wikipedia is not a newspaper.  --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:54, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Methode of Preparation 

message: Although the article is heavily cited, much of it reads as if it were cut-and-pasted. "We report the case of. . ." sounds much like medical journal language--not general encyclopedia language. I would remind that Wiki policy is not "citation covers all sins." Text that is lifted wholesale from other sources may be in violation of copyright. Several parts of this article sound like they came directly from a medical/epidemiology journal article, or a biology textbook . 
Perhaps someone should take a look at the cited works and see if the text has been copied verbatim--if so, it should be deleted from here. There usually isn't a problem with restating some information, although if we wish to follow the best practices we really should not be merely reading a sentence, restating it, reading the next sentence, etc. 
Roy 03:49, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Honest reference or plagiarism?

message: Sorry, just a clarrification, I've never seen Wikipedia say "We" before as it does in the following sentance:
"We report the case of a young adult who ingested a large number of the seeds, causing initial toxicity, but with subsequent full recovery."
Should this be changed or is this normal?
:Someone copied four journal abstracts verbatim into that section. I have removed the text, but left in references to the journals. --Arcadian 13:48, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "We" ? 

message: Hi,
My own experience with the seeds to share:
In my country Ricin oil is very common, sold in all pharmacies, we put it on hairs to trait hair loss and you do not need a hair cream when you use it. Hair loss, peple who are not seeking more hair do not use it.
The seeds are common too,where I live we do not plant it, it grow spontanously along the high way and sometimes we see rates eating the seeds that fall on the ground during summer.I do not if they die of it or not!!
when visiting my cousins many years ago, in thier area, the plan is known, common and planted in the garden, you just plant the seeds and you get a samll tree pretty fast (1 year).
I eated the seeds, (pretty much like nuts) lots of them. more then 12 any ways, my cousin let me do so, he did not have them, then his dead said it is ok, but to have too many, some people get sick when eating to much!!! I gave my mum 3 or 4. That was during the day, at night we walk up sick, I vomited a bit (not much), strengly, my mum who had much less seeds was sicker then me, I went back to bed but she kept vomiting and feelingsick for about 3 or 4 hours. The day after every thing was back to normal, we never had them again.
Abviously, as seeds they are not that toxic, but it realy depend on the person, my mum was sick after eating just 4 seeds. And on the quantity, I was slightly sick after eating more than 12!! If I did not stop (I enjoyed them) I had 500g or something I do not know what would have happened, as for my mum, I am sure, it would have been very serious for her if she had more than 12 seeds like I did, 500g she could have passed.
If you have the tree, do not eat the seeds and watch the children.
I cannot think  of this as a weapon, not as seeds anways!
Take care —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.35.202.139 (talk • contribs) Jul 30, 2007
* Er.. for the most part Ricin has to be extracted from the beans. Between stomach acid and mucus lining the intestines, it's difficult for ricin to enter the blood stream through digestion. It's easy enough to weaponize, though. 129.33.49.251 (talk) 18:35, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  First-hand account of ingestion 

message: :Image:Ricin plot Daily Mirror.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
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BetacommandBot (talk) 04:35, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Ricin plot Daily Mirror.jpg

message: There are several different statements about the toxicity of ricin which seem to be inconsistent.
"U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) gives a possible minimum figure of 0.5 milligrams for the lethal dose of Ricin in humans if exposure is from injection or inhalation."  Okay, sounds pretty authoritative.
"A pinhead-sized amount can kill an adult."  Is the density of ricin so low that a pinhead-sized amount (I assume on the order of 10^-9 m^3) weighs only 0.5 mg?  Or does this refer to a different delivery mechanism than injection or inhalation?
"Ricin is 6 billion times more toxic than cyanide and 12 billion times more poisonous than rattlesnake venom by weight."  This seems very unlikely.  If the lethal dose of ricin is 0.5 mg, that would put the lethal dose of cyanide at 3000 kg, and rattlesnake venom at 6000 kg.  Doesn't make them seem very dangerous.  The article on cyanide poisoning says the lethal dose is about 5-10 mg/kg, or about 500 mg for an adult human, which would make ricin about 1000 times more toxic.  So this sentence is clearly absurd and I'm going to remove it.
Nattylite (talk) 02:45, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inconsistent info on toxicity 

message: Hi Firsthand Account,
Thanks for writing. What country are you from? You mentioned that "in your country", but you didn't say where you were from. Also, why were you eating the seeds? Was it an experiment just to see what would happen or did someone tell you that they were yummy? Curious about that...
SWAK ! (Sealed With A Kiss !) 
Seahappy (talk) 03:33, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question for: First-hand account of ingestion 

message: What is the vulnerability of dogs and cats, other mammals, and other animals to ricin, compared to humans?
-69.87.203.171 (talk) 13:06, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  vulnerability of other animals 

message: I'm a bit disappointed that the article seems to be primarily biased towards the use of ricin as a poison, but doesn't go into the actual means of action. If I get time, I'll try to include something, but it's been a while since I looked at it in undergraduate biochemistry. To answer the above question, though, from what I recall it non-selectively disrupts cell membranes, so should be equally toxic to other animals as it is to humans. If I recall, the way it kills is by literally dissolving your cells (which overwhelms quite a lot of body-wide systems), and it is not used up in this process (hence the small amount required for lethality.) -Kieran (talk) 11:10, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Pharmacology/biochemistry

message: The article says the CDC gives the lethal dose as "500 micrograms (about the size of a grain of salt)". However I don't really like this as for one thing, the CDC page linked doesn't mention this as far as I can see; and for another, the size of a grain of salt is quite variable. I've requested some citation.--KX36 (talk) 15:11, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request citation for lethal dose 

message: Shouldn't Ricinoleic acid be mentioned in the text? Badagnani (talk) 23:02, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Err, why should it be? It is totally unrelated to ricin other than that it is found in the same plant. The only possible mention would be that the presence of ricin in the seeds prevents the fatty acid being used as a chemical feedstock. I'm not certain you'd find a source however. Smartse (talk) 23:45, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Ricinoleic acid]] 

message: The section regarding ricin incidents is far to long and need to be either trimmed or split. If no one objects or does it themselves, I will do so. DKqwerty (talk) 22:06, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Go for it, some seem a bit close to WP:NOT#NEWS but it should definitely be a separate article. Smartse (talk) 23:36, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Incidentally this looks like quite a good WP:GA candidate to me. Smartse (talk) 23:41, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Incidents" section needs to be split 

message: Who decides on the pronunciation, most words can be pronouced a couple of diffrent ways, especially in the UK and US, but I have never heard Ricin pronounced with an A, I am watching a programme now about Ricin, and no one is pronoucing it with a heavy A, they are all saying it with a heavy I, IE rye sin, and this is an America TV show, and I have always heard it with the heavy I in the UK. rai sin is what chaps do around a rai sin track in their rai sin cars.Yakacm (talk) 04:58, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  pronounced /ˈraɪ sɨn 

message: In the toxicity section it reads, "Ricin is poisonous....with appropriate treatment, most patients will make a full recovery.[2]" Then goes on to say, "Long term organ damage is likely in survivors." the second statement is presented without citation and directly contradicts the first. One must go.   — Preceding unsigned comment added by Valerophenone (talk • contribs) 07:48, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: toxicity contradiction

message: Under the heading "Toxicity" it says "The case experience is not as negative as popular perception would indicate".  I think this is very badly worded.  Does this mean that the symptoms experienced by poison victims is not as bad as we might think or does it mean something else?  I not sure what it means and think it should be reworded.  2.219.126.222 (talk) 14:26, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Updated and quoted the authors. Jokestress (talk) 15:45, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Bad wording

message: *Ricin is used in Breaking Bad several timesCrocodilesAreForWimps (talk) 19:54, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: He did almost poison Tuco with it though. --Your sentient rowboat overlord (talk) 13:52, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  In Popular Culture 

message: I added "citation needed" tags to two claims that ricin is easy to make and readily available. The Anarchist's Cookbook may have put that idea into pop culture and the relatively high concentration of ricin in the waste byproduct of castor oil manufacturing makes it an appealing claim. However, my search of the liturature doesn't show any evidence that ricin is easy to make. Experts have stated (as cited elsewhere in the article) that the patented method doesn't work. I'm not saying it's impossible to make. I am saying that making something that requires the resources available to a military chemical weapon lab or a pharmaceutical company doesn't qualify as "easy" in my book. SteveTheRed (talk) 04:56, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Easy to Prepare 

message: Early in the article it is stated that the lethal, oral dose of ricin is 20-30 mg/kg.
Later the article states that 5-20 castor beans could prove fatal to an adult.
Taking the standard (but no longer existent) 70kg medical adult, and using the lesser fatal dose of 20mg/kg gives the fatal oral dose to be 1400mg - about 0.6 pounds - of pure ricin.
Even if each castor bean is 100% ricin (which seems improbable) then with a fatal dose range of 5-20 beans, each bean must weigh between 0.5 and 2 ounces. 
These are heavy beans indeed - unless I've done the maths wrong, or unless the fatal dose is not correctly given.
RedFishBluFish (talk) 11:51, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like 1.4 grams to me.JSR (talk) 12:03, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Red IS doing his math wrong. 1400 mg = 1.4 g = 0.05 oz = 0.003 lb, not 0.6 lb  Fnj2 (talk) 14:36, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The LD50 for ricin is quoted by Fischer Scientific (their MSDS) as 0.3 mg per kg. For a 70kg adult that works out at 21mg for a fatal dose, the weight of a grain of rice. The pellet metal pellet packed with ricin that killed Georgi Markov measured 1.7 mm diameter (see article), so the ricin payload must have been considerably less than 21mg. (Do the math) Plantsurfer (talk) 17:51, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  How Big ARE These Beans? 

message: Why is there a "External Link" for canola oil?  Canola oil is not castor oil, and the linked page makes no mention of castor oil, castor beans, or ricin.  I removed the external link due to being a complete non sequitur.  Now, if anyone has a good link for the toxicity (or lack thereof) of castor oil, that would be useful.152.17.148.93 (talk) 16:43, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Canola oil 

message: The article explicitly states that the seed cake is *not* safe for animal feed, and can kill animals. Then, in manufacture, we get this:
"The aqueous phase left over from the oil extraction process is called waste mash. It would contain about 5–10% ricin by weight, but heating during the oil extraction process denatures the protein, making the resultant seed cake safe for use as animal feed. "
It's contradictory. Meanwhile, the sentence about "the aqueous phase..." does not contribute to understanding the manufacture of Ricin, because it leads nowhere but to a statement of the safety of using mash for feed. I've cut all of the above. zadignose (talk) 10:47, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Animal Feed, and manufacture. 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: There are contradictory statements in the paragraphs about treatment:
:"An antidote has been developed by the UK military, although it has not yet been tested on humans. Another antidote developed by the U.S. military has been shown to be safe and effective in lab mice injected with antibody-rich blood mixed with ricin, and has had some human testing.
:Symptomatic and supportive treatments are available for ricin poisoning, but there is no antidote for ricin available for humans.
:[...]
:Although there is no antidote currently available for ricin poisoning"
These all appear in three paragraphs in the middle of the "toxicity" section. I started to try to merge the statements about antidotes into the other two, but I think it needs attention from someone who's got more experience with wiki's writing style than I do. IMO, it needs to be rewritten from the ground up or it's going to look cobbled together. -Athaler (talk) 15:43, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Treatment/Antidote 

message: I am unsure how the Page Previews are handled, as I could not find the code in the article and the preview itself only allows me to disable or enable the preview.
To the matter:
The Page Preview for ricin is nine lines of "breaking bad breaking bad" accompanied by the structure image from the article.
I believe this needs to be addressed, as it appears to have been vandalized.
Everchanging02 (talk) 17:00, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page Preview Error?